Lost In Time
by AnonymousWriter117
Summary: Just before the fall of the Jedi Oder, four Jedi are transported forwards in time to witness what the future holds and how they might prevent it.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, not even going to claim that for a second**

 **Just an idea I had. Not sure how far I'll get with it, but if I have time, and if people like it, I've got plans…  
**

 _He wouldn't make it_. The thought hit Anakin like a physical blow as he wrestled his speeder down a narrow shortcut though the traffic of Coruscant. His desperation rising, he forced the craft even faster, pulling into a dive and hurtling towards the Senate building, swinging to a stop and leaping out in one fluid motion. He barely even noticed his feet touch the ground as he alighted and set off at an immediate sprint.

Palpatine had to live, that was the one thing Anakin was sure of. He had pondered the decision, but he had the power save Padmé; if she died now, it would be his fault. His mother had died because he hadn't been strong enough to save her, he couldn't face that again… so Palpatine had to live.

Almost flying over the ground in his haste to reach the chancellor's office, Anakin spotted the entrance ahead and re-doubled his efforts, surging into the main chamber.

He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it hadn't been this. Slowing to a walk, he glanced around the room, spotting the bodies of three of the Jedi he had seen accompanying Windu earlier. However, his attention was held by the scene in front of him, and he slowly moved towards the two figures framed in the window.

Palpatine was backed against the wall, his face twisted in a snarl, and blue lightning was erupting from his fingers in a deadly display of writhing energy. Anakin beheld this almost as if in a dream, he felt like he was simply observing a stranger in his body. He was dimly aware of both men calling out his name, and he activated his lightsaber, hearing a voice plead that murder was not the Jedi way, that the chancellor must stand trial. With some surprise, he realised the voice was his.

The room seemed to dim as he surveyed the two men, with a jolt of panic, Anakin realised something was wrong. He felt tired, felt his thoughts begin to scatter as his mind went blank. With a cry, he staggered forward and collapsed.

He never saw what happened to him next, he blacked out before he even touched the floor.

Windu could feel pure hatred radiating of the sith lord in front of him, and with a well-practised technique, he allowed it to course through himself as well. He felt detached, like it was someone else who was fighting. That much was imperative, he could not afford to become emotionally involved in the fight, too many dark emotions were coursing through him, waiting to be reflected against his opponent, and he could not allow them to influence his decisions.

He was sure that without vaapad, he would have died along with his fellow Jedi, but he could not afford to dwell on their deaths for more than a second, for doing so would force him to lower his guard, a mistake he knew would prove fatal.

So Windu and Sidious remained locked in their duel, with neither gaining the upper hand and neither faltering or failing in their moves. Both fought with desperation and determination – whoever lost this duel would lose much more than their life, everything they had fought for would fall as either the Jedi or the Sith order were destroyed. Both men knew this, and wordlessly they matched strokes and slashes with apparent ease, searching for openings that refused to appear.

Eventually, as if he were watching from a dream, Windu saw himself deftly disarm Sidious, sending the sith's lightsaber spiralling into the streets below.

All he had left to do now was arrest the seemingly defenceless man. Palpatine slowly raised his hands in front of his face, as if to protect himself, but Windu realised was going to happen just in time to catch the barrage of lightning erupting from the Chancellor's fingers on his lightsabre, and in that moment realised that the man before him could not be arrested, he was too powerful. He had to die…

Even defenceless, Windu doubted he could kill Palpatine, he could barely deflect the lightning directed at him. He would have to try though, tensing, he readied himself to strike. Then the doors to the Chancellor's office burst open and Anakin entered, looking terrified. Windu paid it no mind, the boy had reviled the identity of the Sith, and come to help when he was needed most – he had proved himself a Jedi. In desperation, Windu yelled out his need for support, but Anakin stood motionless, transfixed by the sight. Slowly, he moved forwards, and Windu noticed a slight blue aura glowing around the Jedi. As Anakin moved slowly forwards, the light around him grew steadily stronger and brighter, until he finally seemed to notice it. Panic flared briefly in the eyes, and he activated his lightsaber and surged forwards to help.

He made it a few steps before the light around him completely enveloped him. Windu could just make out the silhouette of the Jedi collapsing to the ground before the blue light abruptly faded into nothing.

Anakin was gone. Where he had stood but moments before, only the impression of his boots on the carpet of the office remained. Windu let out a wordless snarl and turn back to the Chancellor, "you", he growled. The eyes of the sith lord reflected only malevolence, giving no clue as to his part in Anakin's disappearance. Windu renewed his efforts to reach the sith through his lightning, seeking now only to stop any further death before it was too late. Amidst the swirl of lightning, he saw something which made his heart jolt, and he realised it already was.

A faint purple aura surrounded him, steadily increasing in strength and brightness. He felt his mind begin to drift away from his body. With one final cry of defiance before the inevitable, Windu shifted the angle of his lightsaber, deftly pirouetting to the other side to avoid the Sith lord's lightning. He swung his weapon towards where he knew Palpatine's head was, but even as he did so, he knew it was too late. Something hit him in the chest and for a few moments, all he could feel was pure agony as his body was wracked by the current fired into it. Shaking, he got to his feet to see blue energy still dancing over the fingertips of his opponent. He noticed a glow on Sidious' chest where his lightsaber had made contact and noted with a mild satisfaction that he had been able to wound his opponent.

Windu barely even noticed the pain anymore, his body was slowly being enveloped by the light around him, until all he could be was stare defiantly at the Sith Lord as he faded into nothing.

Moments later, all clones received a message from the Chancellor. It was always the same, and always meant the same thing: the end of the Jedi Order.


	2. Chapter 2

**Still don't own Star Wars, as much as I wish I did**

Far away on Utapau, Obi-Wan Kenobi cried out as he felt a metal clawed foot connect with his chest, forcing him to drop the plasma-tipped staff he had been using and throwing him into the air. He landed heavily, already aware of the cyborg advancing on him. Desperately, he tried to duck the next attack thrown at him. Feeling it pass over his head, Obi-Wan attempted to ready himself for the next blow, but he was too slow and felt it strike his stomach, throwing him back into his ship. He could only glare as he again watched Grievous advance and felt a metal claw close around his throat, barely managing to duck the subsequent punch aimed at his head.

Trying not to dwell on the sizable dent left by the punch, the Jedi gathered his strength and began to desperately prize open the metal plates enclosing the cyborg's small, pulsing heart, beating pathetically in its owner's chest. His efforts were rewarded by a backhand which caught him directly across the face and sent him sprawling onto the ground, making his vision swim as he narrowed his eyes to try and block out the pain. Attempting to get up, he only registered the foot coming towards his face moments before it hit. His head snapped back, and he was knocked back to the floor just in time to see the metal spiked foot once again descending to crush his head.

Driven by instinct now, Obi-Wan threw himself to the side and lashed his foot out to trip his attacker. He only succeeded in injuring his shin as he made contact with the metal casing of Grievous' leg, causing him to clutch it in agony. Unfortunately, this bought enough time for the cyborg to reach down and throw him brutally across the platform; he landed hard and rolled increasingly closer to the edge, until he finally tipped over the side and began to fall.

Desperately, Obi-Wan threw up and arm and felt it latch onto the cold metal surface of the platform, which he clung on to with renewed determination; but the battle was still far from won, and he cast his eyes around frantically for a weapon he could use to kill his enemy. They fell first on the electrostaff he had wielded earlier, and the Jedi was dismayed to see Grievous brandishing it as he slowly advanced, savouring Obi-Wan's futile position with malice in his yellow eyes. However, an instant later, he spotted the blaster he had knocked from Grievous earlier in the fight, and with one swift movement, he used the force to call it into his hand and fired…

The cyborg's heart burst into flame as the bolt made contact through the plates on his chest which Obi-Wan had prised apart moments earlier. The Jedi fired again, five times in total, and soon General Grievous was reduced to a smoking corpse of burnt organs and twisted metal.

Obi-Wan sighed heavily. It had been a taxing battle, and he casually tossed his blaster down beside him in dismissal of the foe who now lay motionless in front of him. _General Grievous was dead_. He allowed the thought a moment to sink in, briefly savouring his victory before turning his attention to the more pressing matter of the battle still raging around him.

His clones would need support, he could relax when Utapau was his, but first he would need to regroup with Cody to send word of Grievous' death back to Coruscant and finally unearth the Chancellor's true motivations. Obi-Wan felt uneasy about not being there to support his fellow Jedi when they tried to transition power away from Palpatine – he didn't trust the man and was wary of how much sway he held over Anakin, a man he saw almost as a brother to him. If anything was going to happen, he should be there.

But the council had given him the pivotal role of killing Grievous and ending the war, which he had resigned himself to willingly in the acceptance that it was vital for the droid leader to die before talks of peace and redistribution of power in the Senate could even commence. He knew he had a vital job to do and would have to trust in the Jedi order to do what was best in his absence. The thought did almost nothing to calm him, however, and the feeling of unease continued to gnaw at him until he managed to focus himself solely on the task at hand.

Before long, he reached Commander Cody with instructions to relay the message of Grievous' death back to Coruscant and was pleasantly surprised when his lightsaber was handed back to him. Gratefully, he thanked the clone and raced back to finish the battle. Now focussed on his targets in the upper levels of Utapau, Obi-Wan retreated into his mind, almost detaching himself from his body as he slowly only became aware of his pulse increasing in anticipation of the conflict and strategies which he had begun to formulate in his mind - clearing the droids out of specific sectors to establish strongholds for his clones to push out from, and… He only saw the missile directed at him when it was too late.

His mount plummeted with him far down to the pools of green water below. He wasn't sure if it was shock or exhaustion, but Obi-Wan felt his vision begin to fade as he fell. Dimly, he became aware of a faint blue glow surrounding him -it was the last conscious thought he had before he felt himself hit water and everything went black.

 _Death. So much death._ Yoda felt it suddenly across the galaxy, so many force signatures which he had come to know and cherish were suddenly silenced. He could feel the pain of thousands of Jedi, supposed to be under his protection, and he knew he had failed them. The sense of grief and loss hit him like a physical pain, and he staggered forwards clutching his chest as he struggled to comprehend what he had just felt. Then he heard it. The almost silent tread of a clone's boot and the priming of blasters right behind him. On instinct, he probed towards their minds and struggled not to recoil as his worst fears were realised. There had been no emotion there, no hatred towards him, no motive, but he had felt their intentions. They were just following orders, but someone had ordered them to kill him. In an instant, he understood what had happened to his fellow Jedi and for an instant, anger threatened to consume him, but instants later he checked it and withdrew his lightsaber. Emotion would not help him now.

With a precise, perfectly executed strike, Yoda launched himself backwards, twisting himself in the air and feeling his weapon slice through its targets effortlessly. He landed gracefully, hearing the heads of the two clones sent to execute him clatter to the ground behind him, but he couldn't bring himself to feel satisfaction at having survived the attempt on his life – the knowledge of the death toll across the galaxy weighed too heavily on his mind, and he could only focus on uncovering the extent of the massacre.

Wordlessly, he accepted an arm from Chewbacca and clambered up onto the Wookie's back. Je had to leave this planet, and he had to be discreet. The two wookies escorting him knew the gravity of the situation and knew where they needed to go. They journeyed slowly, avoiding patrols of clones and droids alike, trying not to focus on the corpses of the once proud Wookie freedom fighters now sprawled pathetically along the beaches and forests of the land they had fought so fiercely to defend.

It was night before they reached the small escape pod which would carry Yoda off Kashyyyk. With a heavy heart, he said farewell to his Wookie companions, prompting a mournful bellow form Chewbacca, and fell into his thoughts as the door of the escape pod closed on him, feeling it vibrate slightly as it took off.

The last day had given him a lot to reflect on, and the loss of his friends and brothers of the Jedi order was still raw in Yoda's mind. He fell into a state of semi-consciousness, barely aware of his surroundings and he slowly let his thoughts wash over him. He was so focused on reflection that it took him a few moments to notice the green glow forming around him. He felt its power in the force, but didn't try and resist, resigning himself to his fate. Grief from the massacre he had felt still plagued him, and he briefly wondered if this was the Force's response to his failure. He didn't mind, whatever the Force willed, Yoda would accept.

As the green light grew stronger and brighter, he closed his eyes and cleared his mind, he was faintly aware of his vision fading as his mind began to drift, but he welcomed the sensation. Yoda sensed the light around him fill the pod, then everything went black and he knew no more. When the light faded, the pod was empty: Yoda was gone.

 **I just want to thank everyone who's taken the time to read this so far, especially those who have left reviews, I'll action them as soon as I can, so stay tuned!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: none of these characters are mine, all places and ideas mentioned belong to Lucasfilm and Disney (unfortunately)**

Anakin awoke with a start. Glancing around his surroundings, he noticed that he was in a featureless grey room, lit by a single dull light strip overhead, which illuminated the room in a dim yellow light. Stacked uniformly around him were crates, but despite craning his neck, he couldn't make out what was inside them. Straining his memory, he tried to recall what had happened before he had blacked out.

It all came crashing back in an instant: the senate, the duel, the sith… Briefly, he wondered if he'd been arrested, after all, he hadn't actively participated in arresting the Chancellor. He felt anger flare within him, towards Windu, for not taking him to begin with; towards Palpatine, for betraying him so thoroughly; and towards his master, who had abandoned him just when he had needed him most. However, Anakin could only afford to wallow in his self-pity for a moment and forced himself to return to his current position. _How was he going to escape?_ He contemplated his situation for a long time, trying in vain to formulate an escape plan.

Eventually, he managed to sink into a meditative state, stretching his mind out to encompass anything that may provide answers to a way out. To his surprise, his mental probe almost immediately brushed against the minds of three others outside the door. Startled, he withdrew immediately, cursing himself for not trying it earlier and threw himself into the shadows behind the nearest crate stack, melting into them with practised ease. The door swung open a moment later, and a solemn voice sounded, straining his ears, Anakin managed to make out a few words, "barely made it out alive… third time this month… stormtroopers are getting better at tracking us…".

Anakin frowned at the conversation, very little made sense to him. The people were dressed in almost civilian clothing, resembling no clone or droid he had ever seen, and yet they were all armed, holing their blasters with an ease and familiarity born of experience. No citizen of Coruscant was fighting in the war, that was what the clones had been commissioned for, so where was he? Anakin already sensed something was amiss, so pressed himself further into the shadows, completely concealing himself from sight.

However, this cost him more than he would have liked, and he caught no more of the conversation, keeping out of sight until he heard the door slam behind the last man. He kept listening but heard nothing. There had been no key: the door was unlocked. Bracing himself for what he now suspected to be an elaborate trap or mind game by the newly uncovered sith lord, Anakin crept forwards, easing the door open just enough to slip through before noiselessly closing it behind him. Warily, he unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, but refrained from activating it in his attempt to remain unnoticed.

The passageway he now found himself in was uniformly lit and lined with identical doors like the one he had just emerged from. He crept down the passage and peered in through one of the doors: the room was empty. As he progressed, he realised that almost all the rooms in the facility were. He understood why, it wasn't the first time he'd seen a base in the middle of an evacuation, he wondered if it was connected to the 'stormtroopers' he'd heard mention of earlier. Anakin kept going, walking as softly as he could, but never able to shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He didn't recognise he locks on the doors that had them, but he could tell they were advanced, which confused him, there had to be a reason why security this advanced was being used to protect what was seemingly an old a storage facility…

Most worryingly though, there was no sign of the war, no emblems, no mention of the Separatists or the Republic, yet the signs of battle were everywhere. Blaster bolts had burned numerous holes into the walls, littering them with reminders of an enemy who Anakin knew was never truly gone.

Finally, he reached the end of the corridor and, spotting a darkened storage room with its door open ajar, darted out of the light to collect his thoughts. Almost immediately, he sensed something was wrong. Anakin froze, flattening himself against the wall and listening intently for a sign that he was not alone. He was almost about to relax when he heard the almost imperceptible sound of a boot easing itself onto the floor at what he guessed was five metres behind him. Tensing his body, he waited until he could sense the presence almost upon him, then dropped to avoid a sharp blow he predicted would be aimed at his head, springing up in a savage upwards strike which he had honed throughput his years fighting in the clone wars. He hadn't been mistaken, but his timing had been off by a few crucial moments and with dismay, he felt his fist connect with empty air, before feeling a sharp pain in the side of his temple as his attacker's strike connected.

However, the moment he had missed his strike, Anakin had reacted on instinct, throwing himself to the side, and was able to role with the blow and minimise the damage. He spun away from his attacker, dropping into a low crouch and sweeping his leg out to trip them. To his satisfaction, he felt himself make contact and waited for the sound of his attacker collapsing onto the ground, so he could execute a quick strike to the throat to incapacitate them. The sound never came. Instead, Anakin heard the soft of boots alighting on the ground as his opponent neatly flipped to land on their feet. Letting out a small growl, Anakin sprang back at his opponent, but halfway through his jump, he felt an invisible force collide with him and send him sprawling back onto the ground. As he felt the air leave him, Anakin realised with a growing sense of terror that his opponent was a force user.

Realising they could sense where he was, Anakin abandoned his attempt at stealth, slowly and purposefully walking towards his opponent, letting his lightsaber hilt drift down to his side as he did so. When he sensed he was in striking range, Anakin flicked his arm over his head, activating his weapon as he did so. The humming blue blade shot out in a glowing arc as it descended on its target, only to be stopped at the last second. Reacting on instinct, Anakin pirouetted away from the lock and swung his lightsaber round, dropping into a crouch as he did so, aiming for his opponent's legs. It didn't surprise his to find they jumped the blow, but he pressed his offensive whilst he could, raining two more overhead strikes down before spinning out of the conflict to disengage. As he stood trying to gauge a strategy, he noticed the blue hue of his opponent's lightsaber suddenly vanished and he heard a harsh whisper, "Anakin, turn it off, you'll get us both killed", the figure hissed. With a sudden sense of understanding, he rushed to do as the voice had instructed, clipping his lightsaber to his belt and grasping the forearm the figure had extended. "Sorry Master, I almost had you", he grinned. However, both him and Obi-Wan, now revealed as the figure he had been fighting moments ago, kept their mental shields strong around their minds, to prevent against a mental attack by a more malevolent force user.

Their reunion was cut short and a blood red light suddenly filled the room and the group of armed civilians Anakin had seen earlier suddenly filed into the room. One of them felt a flare aloft, but all brandished strange blasters that Anakin wasn't familiar with pointed at the Jedi. Reacting fast, the two Jedi called their lightsabers to their hands and adopted a defensive position, covering each other's backs, as they had become accustomed to during their time serving together in the clone wars, they remained tense as they waited for the first shots to be fired at them, adrenaline already beginning to course through their veins in anticipation of the fight to come.

The shots never came though, because at that moment, the civilian holding the flare called in a clear voice, "stand down, they're friendly". Every blaster was immediately holstered, and Anakin saw a fleeting look of admiration at their discipline pass over Obi-Wan's face. Remaining locked in their position, Obi-Wan called out "who are you, and what do you want with us?", voicing Anakin's own questions. "Stay calm Master Jedi", came the response, "please come with me, I'll take you to the others, and we can try and make sense of what just happened alright?". The two Jedi nodded their agreement and sheathed their lightsabers, but didn't clip them to their belts, remaining wary of the group escorting them. "The others?" hissed Anakin, "do you think he means more of us travelled through?" Obi-Wan muttered his agreement with the question, but otherwise remained mostly silent throughout the journey, speaking only to point out possible tactical spots to secure in case of their escort turned on them.

Eventually, they reached what resembled a hangar, filled with craft Anakin he never seen before. They had long, thin bodies, with thin wings kept together and the back of the craft. They were numerous throughout the hangar, and he briefly wondered how he hadn't seen them before in combat. However, he didn't get time to dwell on this for long, as he noticed the two figures standing slightly apart from the rest of the troops, as he had come to think of their escort now. Yoda bowed his head in acknowledgment of the Jedi as they approached, and Windu greeted them each in turn. His words were short and curt, but there was a new respect in his eyes when he spoke to Anakin, and his voice seemed to have slightly lost its accusatory edge. Obi-Wan shot Anakin a small smile as he noticed, and Anakin briefly nodded in thanks. Their reunion was cut short when the man who had held the flair suddenly cleared his throat. "Greetings", he started, "only the Force knows how you got here, but you four might just be the miracles we needed to repel the Empire. They know we're here, and its only a matter of time before they launch a full-scale assault, most of our forces are already off-planet, but we'll need to help us hold out until we can fully evacuate. Show them no mercy, they'll show none to you: gentlemen, welcome to the Rebellion!"

 **I decided to focus on Anakin's perspective for this chapter, don't worry, it won't always be like that, and I do have a few ideas for where I'm going next. Thanks again for everyone who has followed and reviewed this so far, it's really helped me to work on this story as fast as I could.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Star Wars**

 _None of this makes sense,_ thought Obi-Wan, as he allowed himself to be led round what remained of the base by the 'commander', as he had introduced himself. The man had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, greeted them warmly, and invited them to join his cause. He seemed genuine and welcoming to the guests he had never met and Obi-Wan watched his every move intently because of it. Survival in war time relied upon distrusting strangers, striking first and asking questions when your enemies couldn't ambush you. The man standing in front of him had wasted no time in greeting the Jedi as he would old friends and proceeding to discuss battle plans against what Obi-Wan assumed must be the Separatists.

However, seeds of doubt were beginning to form in his mind. The 'Empire' the man described sounded vastly different from the enemy the Republic had become so accustomed to fighting. Slowly, a sense of unease crept over Obi-Wan as he noticed the lack of clone troops amongst the ranks of 'rebels'. A wave of nausea washed over him as he recalled his last memories before he hit the water, he had been fired on. _Where had the shot come from though…_ he wondered. _It exploded directly beneath me, the angle would have been impossible from the droid positions on the upper levels._ He recalled the slight shift in the force he had felt moments before he was hit, remembered how the blue bolt had cleaved the ground from under his mount and sent them falling...

 _Blue._ Obi-Wan suddenly snapped into focus. The separatists had no blue weaponry. Their shells were red, their blaster bolts were red, never blue. _Blue was the colour of the republic_. His heart racing, Obi-Wan slowly realised what had happened, his own troops had fired on him. Everything made sense now, the shift in the force, why he hadn't accounted for it, but not why Cody had given him his lightsaber back. Why would someone arm the person they knew they were going to kill, unless… "they're being controlled!" he exclaimed, drawing curious glances from the other Jedi, who knew Obi-Wan as calm and rational, not prone to outburst. "The clones," he explained, "they turned on me, but they re-armed me only moments before, someone's controlling them." Turning to the commander, he addressed the man directly, "is that why there are none here, and why civilian soldiers are being used to evacuate the base?"

To his surprise, the other three Jedi shared a knowing look, and Windu inclined his head towards Anakin, with the short comment of, "this would be best coming from you, Skywalker."

"We know," Anakin began, "Master Windu and I, we had just apprehended the mastermind behind the war…" he trailed off, obviously unsure of how to continue, "Master, it was the Chancellor."

Obi-Wan felt his breathing stop for a moment with the crushing implications of his old Padawan's words. The sith mastermind had controlled both sides of the war, it somehow seemed like the only logical solution, but still he felt a looming sense of dread when he paused to consider the impact this would have on the Jedi Order. If they had been almost able kill him, as one of the highest-ranking members, the effect on the rest would be near extinction.

The commander snapped him out of his thoughts with a curt question, "what do clones have to do with anything Master Jedi? They're mostly dead now, and you should know they serve the Empire, you survived the Purges after all."

"Purges?" This time it was Windu who spoke, a short, punctual question. "There are no records of a purge of any race in recent history which might have impacted on the Jedi."

"The Jedi Purges," insisted the commander indignantly, "they were hunting Jedi, how does this not mean anything to you? It was only a matter of years ago." His voice had slowly risen throughout his small speech and towards the end he was almost shouting in indignation. However, when he finished, Obi-Wan noted how his eyes adopted a far away look and his bottom lip quivered in a supressed tremble, he wondered who the man had lost.

"The current year, what is?" Master Yoda spoke for the first time, his eyes fixed intently upon the rebel. "3 ABY," the man replied solemnly. Obi-Wan didn't know what answer he had been expecting, but it hadn't been that one. He fought to keep his face impassive, but knew Anakin would have less success, a fear which was confirmed when he saw a grimace flash across the young Jedi's face. This was not lost of the Commander, who immediately sought to uncover the truth.

"That means something to you doesn't it?" he demanded, "you don't know the empire, think we are civilians, and seem to have no idea you belong to an extinct religion! I need answers now: who are you?" Obi-Wan failed to keep his face neutral this time, _the Jedi can't be extinct_ , he thought desperately, _I would have felt it._ He reached out with the force to dismiss his concerns but felt nothing. The connections which he had once known and cherished were gone, the universe felt almost empty without, and for a few moments, the crushing weight of loneliness threatened to consume Obi-Wan.

"From this time, we are not", Yoda was saying diplomatically, "come forward we did, help you we must." _So, it's decided_ , thought Obi-Wan, _we are rebels_.

"The Empire was formed out of the ashes of the Republic", he snapped out of his thoughts to focus on what the Commander was saying, "after the Republic was disbanded, the Empire took its place, filling its ranks with Stormtroopers to replace the clones, and mercilessly hunting any surviving Jedi. You may not know, but you were branded 'enemies of the state' and hunted to near extinction by Darth Vader soon after the formation of the Empire, we were founded by Mon Mothma, Bail Organa and Padmé Amidala to oppose them." Obi-Wan noticed Anakin glance up at the mention of Padmé but decided not to say anything. "And although two of them have now perished in the line of duty," the Commander continued, "Skywalker avenged Bail by destroying their accursed Death Star, and they've never managed to get close to Mon Mothma, so the rebellion endures." At the mention of Skywalker, Obi-Wan glanced over at Anakin, who remained expressionless, save for a single tear, which rolled down his face at the implication of Senator Amidala's death.

He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the commander, who suddenly snapped his attention down to his wrist, where a small device flashed a red dot three times. The man's tone became urgent as he quickly addressed them, "we've been infiltrated", he stated, Obi-Wan noted with suppressed admiration that there was no trace of panic in his voice, "imperials are on their way as we speak, we need to leave this base, now. I have a ship this way, we can talk on board, then – "

He never finished his sentence. Feeling a tremor in the Force, the four Jedi rushed to intervene, but were too late. The smell of charred flesh filled the room, and the commander glanced down to the hole seared through his abdomen and collapsed without a word. A pale man stood behind him, with small eyes and large, protruding front teeth, which gave him a distinctly rat-like impression. He brandished a small, compact blaster unlike any model Obi-Wan had seen and opened his mouth to speak. With a deft flick of his wrist, Anakin, drew his lightsaber and sent it hurtling like a javelin straight into the man's heart, he died instantly, and without a sound, crumpling to the ground noiselessly.

A groaning from behind them suddenly commanded the attention of the four Jedi. They turned to find the commander propped up on a single elbow. Even as he watched, Obi-Wan saw the man cough and convulse, grimacing against the pain. "Go the rebellion," the man whispered, "help them… the Empire cannot know of your survival, not yet. Take this", he held out his own blaster, "I doubt I'll have any more need of it. Go!" Chuckling weakly, he pressed the blaster into Anakin's hand, and removed a small spherical object from his belt, Obi-Wan immediately recognised the thermal detonator, and understood the plan. "Hangar three… my ship…" the man wheezed, "there will be more of them, now go!"

With a final nod of respect Obi-Wan turned his back and followed Anakin towards the hangars. Far away, he heard the sound of feet marching together in unison, he couldn't tell how many, and knew that the 'Empire' had arrived.

They almost flew through the deserted corridors, not encountering any resistance until they reached a large open room. Obi-Wan noticed how the blast doors of the hangar had been blown off and drew his lightsaber in preparation for combat. His instincts were perfect, and he was just in time to deflect a volley of red blaster bolts that came flying at him. Turning his attention to his attackers, Obi-Wan saw that they resembled clone troopers, but with less angular helmets, and slightly unsteady aim. However, he would show them no mercy. Whilst him and Windu flew at the faceless troops, Anakin and Yoda, by unspoken consent, moved to start the ship.

Obi-Wan knew the technique, they would fly low, giving him and Windu enough time to jump on board the ship at the last moment possible. He remined aware of his surroundings, aware he could not mistime his jump as the ducked under a blaster bolt, turning out of his crouch and beheading his opponent with a backhand blow carried by his momentum. At that moment, a blast shook the base, and Obi-Wan allowed himself to spare a thought for the sacrifice the mysterious Commander had made. To some regret, Obi-Wan realised he hadn't even known the man's name but dismissed the though as he noticed the central pillar in between two blast doors begin to buckle from the shockwave.

An engine roared to life and Obi-Wan executed a perfectly-timed backflip, sailing over the heads of his opponents towards the source of the noise, alighting with a practised grace on the ramp of the ship as it shot towards one of the craters when the blast doors had once stood. As it shot through the opening, Obi-Wan aimed a powerful force push at the weakened pillar, watching with satisfaction as it gave way and the hangar began to crumble, crushing their witnesses. The desert planet they now flew low over was a good place for a hideout, thought Obi-Wan, it was almost uninhabited, with its sandstone canyons and red sands offering an arid, forbidding atmosphere to any life form. However, he only pondered this for a moment before the ramp began to close and he made to re-join the others as the craft angle towards the atmosphere.

They shot through the sky, eventually spotting a small battle raging off just above the surface. Multiple evacuation ships, like those now buried in the hangar, were locked in combat with warships reminiscent of those used by the Republic in the Clone Wars. As Anakin angled their craft to join the fight, Obi-Wan saw Windu put a hand on his shoulder. "No Skywalker," the Jedi Master said, "our first priority is to stay hidden and find this rebellion, that man down there died for us: engaging now would mean he died in vain". Anakin looked like he was about to object, but then Windu added reflectively, "I'm sorry", and with a solemn look in his eyes, Anakin watched as the last evacuation shuttle exploded, trying not to think of the innocent people who had been on board. "There was nothing we could have done anyway", said Obi-Wan solemnly, "let's find these rebels, we need answers".

Unnoticed by the Imperial fleet, the small craft slipped out of the planet's atmosphere and entered hyperspace, shooting past them to find the leaders of the 'rebellion' and whatever answers they might hold.

 **Sorry I haven't updated in a while, it's going to be slower than it was to update now, but this story is only getting started, so please stick with it, and sorry to everyone who didn't like the darker turn the story took, but I am going to try and keep it as realistic as I can for a fic about time travelling Jedi, so expect some characters to die.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Star Wars - none of the characters here are mine**

The mood was sombre as they sped towards their destination. Moments after making their escape, Anakin had manually uncovered the previous coordinates programmed into the navicomputer, identifying those which looked promising and resetting their course.

The four Jedi barely spoke on the journey, each one contemplating what they had just witnessed. It was Windu who eventually broke the silence, "he never gave his name", the Jedi stated formally, "which means that even if we reach this new base he described, they will have no reason to trust us, stay on your guard, these people have already demonstrated why they don't have the luxury of trust." He let the statement hang, the memory of the massacre they had just witnessed still burned in the minds of the Jedi.

"Search the ship, we must", Yoda broke the silence, "hold answers, it might". Obi-Wan wasn't sure if this was purely practical, or a way to distract them from dwelling on their memories. Either way, he was grateful to the grand master for suggesting it. The galaxy was a vastly different place now, and any tool they could use to gain the upper hand in an unexpected conflict would be invaluable.

He didn't pay much attention as he walked, letting his feet carry him around the many sterile corridors with little regard for where they took him. Consumed by his thoughts, he almost didn't notice the ship which suddenly appeared in front of him. Startled for a moment, Obi-Wan dragged himself back to reality to find a hangar of the strange crafts. He recognised them from the base, elongated thin vessels with two wide fins at right angles to the rest of the body. With a subtle smile, he turned to find Anakin, eager to alert his old apprentice of his discovery, which he knew would brighten the man up. Part of the reason for his almost meditative state as he had entered was devoted to pondering the Jedi's reaction to the news of Amidala's death. Grief and concern he would have dismissed, he knew for a fact that the two had been very close, but he had felt terror wash over the boy – he had blamed himself for the death – but, as much as it pained Obi-Wan to admit, he couldn't understand why.

As he had predicted, the news of his discovery appeared to brighten Anakin up slightly, and the Jedi immediately set to work discerning to controls of the mysterious ships. Obi-Wan watched him for a bit, a small smile playing over his lips, then made his way to find Windu and Yoda. Sensing their minds through the force, he methodically worked his way through the many corridors of the ship towards their position, finally discovering the two lost in thought on the bridge. "Masters, I must know, what happened?" he began, "I can sense you both know more than you have deigned to share, but I've never heard of an Empire or a Purge before, was it before I joined the order?"

His questions were met with a long silence, contrary to Obi-Wan's expectations, it was Windu who broke it. "There wasn't", he stated plainly, "the Force works in mysterious ways, am I correct in assuming that you were still on Geonosis before you were transported here?"

"You are, but I still woke up with you, do you think I was captured?" Obi-Wan questioned.

"I cannot be certain of anything at the moment, but there is one thing which can answer the question for us, seconds before you woke up in the 'base', did you see some form of light around your body?"

Obi-Wan was speechless for a moment, having assumed the light he had seen was the shot which had blown him off the cliff face. Windu had no idea he had been shot at, so how did he know about the light? His thoughts shot back and forth in his head for a few moments as the scale of what had happened began to dawn on him, before he dragged himself back to reality, forcing his attention back to the question he'd been asked. "Yes, it began to envelop me and I just… blacked out", he let the statement hang, searching to a sign in the older Jedi's face to signal that his experience hadn't been unique, that there was a greater meaning to their purpose here. However, Windu's face remained impassive, "the blue light…" he elaborated indignantly, trying to find the reaction that would confirm his suspicions that this was some perverse test, or trap by the separatists, anything that would allow him to make sense of what had happened.

Windu sat back in his seat immediately, sinking into deep thought, this time it was Yoda who answered. "The Sith, this was not", the master stated, "desire us here the Force does; so brought us here, it did." The group lapsed back into silence, pondering the possible implications of what this could mean. Eventually, Windu took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, beginning his explanation.

"Whilst you and Knight Skywalker scoured the ship, Master Yoda and I had time to consider the event which brought us all here", the Jedi began, "the main piece of evidence suggesting that this wasn't the work of the Sith is that we're all still alive. Sidious revealed himself, he isn't so arrogant as to leave us capable to strike back at him if he knew our location, and even if this was some extravagant psychological torture he has devised, he would have left four powerful Jedi with their weapons and transport in a group capable of striking back against him. No, this was not the Sith, something far more powerful is at work here…"

He trailed off, and Yoda, who had been silent for most of the conversation, spoke, "blue, you say your light was?"  
"Yes, Master."  
"Then have your answer, you do", Obi-Wan couldn't tell if the Jedi Master was being deliberately cryptic, or if he was simply impatient for answers. At that moment, he didn't care, looking just for answers. Nevertheless, he forced his face into a mask of calm and composure, waiting for the answer he was certain would come. After what felt like hours, but he knew couldn't have been more than a mere matter of minutes, Yoda finally spoke again. "Green, my light was. Purple, was Master Windu's. To the essence of our presence in the force, were these lights tailored, and transportation of matter, far above a single Sith Lord's power is".

Obi-Wan frowned, _'transportation of matter'_ he knew they'd been transported, but what Yoda was insinuating was teleportation. He was aware that it was theoretically possible if one became strong enough with the Force, but he had never heard of someone accomplishing the feat. The sceptical look on his face must have betrayed his doubts to Windu, who looked at him sympathetically. "At first, we doubted it as well," he explained, "but there are no other explanations that seem to make sense, and even that doesn't explain everything that's happened here."

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to counter the point, mind racing as he searched for another outlandish theory inside his accepted realms of possibility to reason everything out in a simple, obvious explanation. He never got to speak, however, because at that moment, a voice sounded from the back of the bridge. "There's a flaw in your theory", Anakin Skywalker interjected, "if the captain back on that base can be trusted, which I assume he can for sacrificing himself and giving us this ship, then many of our friends have been dead for a while, and the Jedi were hunted famously enough to people to consider it common knowledge. Of course, he could be lying, but if you were like me, you would have reached out towards his mind when he started to make those claims – purely to check their validity", Anakin hurriedly clarified his actions in response to a sharp glance from Windu, "you would be aware that he at least felt they were genuine, which means that there is more at work here than a simple teleportation." He ended his speech with a small bitter laugh, Obi-Wan sympathised with the boy, _'simple'_ wasn't the first word he would have used to describe the day's events either. However, he felt more at work here, the emotional and impulsive side to Anakin seemed to have been submerged during his speech, Obi-Wan felt a twinge of concern wash over him and extended his mind towards the Jedi. He felt a feeling of great sadness emanating from his former padawan before the mental shields the two had spent so long perfecting during the Clone Wars were thrown up against him, and Obi-Wan withdrew, accepting that he was prying. Despite his initial compliance though, a feeling of concern for Anakin began to blossom within him, and he resolved to ask the man about it later.

"I can see you are in the middle of a discussion," Anakin continued, acting as if nothing was amiss, "I'm not a Master, so I understand I have no place here, I hope what little contribution I could give was helpful", with that, he tuned to leave. Obi-Wan wasn't fooled, Anakin had seemingly lost his previous arrogant flair, but this excessive humility was extremely uncharacteristic of him and Obi-Wan sensed his underlying desire to be alone, identifying a mixture of shock and grief resonating from the man as the causes. He had just opened his mouth to give his contribution on the matter when Windu spoke, "a Master you are not," he began, "but your input and expertise on who we're facing may prove to be invaluable, your actions with the Chancellor have gained you my trust, and that is a luxury even few masters enjoy."

Obi-Wan felt Anakin relax, although the change was almost imperceptible in his physical posture, and his mental shields lowered slightly, he managed to detect hints of grief and worry before Anakin looked at him sideways and gave a small, sad smile. Obi-Wan inclined his head slightly, respectfully withdrawing himself from his old apprentice's mind and focussing solely on the conversation.

The four Jedi talked for hours, pondering the mysteries of the Force and the loss of everyone they had once held dear. Eventually, the conversation turned to revenge, "know of our survival, the Sith cannot", Yoda stated, "learn more, we must; from the shadows, we must work". The remark was met with solemn nods of approval from the other Jedi – they had been lucky everyone present at the first base was either dead or held no knowledge of their existence – even the 'rebellion' had been compromised in areas.

The last thought that drifted through Obi-Wan's mind before he gave himself over to meditation long after the four Jedi had disbanded after their discussion was how carefully they were going to have to choose their allies now. He sat still, unmoving, thinking over the many intricacies of the situation at hand, as the ship shot towards its destination, and whatever dangers it might present.

 **Really sorry for the slow update guys, life got pretty hectic lately and trying to balance a story with a heavy workload and a tonne of other commitments was really hard, but I've finally got another chapter out, so bear with me, I'm still a very long way from giving up on this story.**

**Thanks again for all the love and kind reviews this has been getting, I am reading them all and they mean a lot - AW117**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I still don't own any of the characters or concepts in this story... unfortunately**

Anakin remained lost in his thoughts for the remainder of the journey. As a Padawan, and even as an accomplished Jedi Knight, he had rebelled against meditation, longing for the thrills found in flying and duelling. It came effortlessly to him now though, as he sat with his legs crossed in front of him on the small cot that passed for his bed on the ship, memories and images of Padmé surfacing in his mind, only to be forced back into the comforting blackness of the mental void he had created to block such painful memories. It hadn't taken Anakin long to develop this technique – he'd had no choice. During the Clone Wars, he couldn't afford to let himself become distracted by wandering thoughts and emotions, which may lead to a mistake or oversight proving fatal for him or his men: both were equally bad in Anakin's eyes. Consequently, he had developed a system where he would shield the sensitive parts of his mind, even from himself, whenever he needed to be in control of his emotions and indulge in them only once he had reached such a meditative state that he could view each one calmly, impassively, as a casual observer might.

He was extremely grateful for this technique now. The news of Padmé's death had visibly shaken Anakin, he had seen the other Jedi notice, but thankfully, none had pressed him at the time. Before they did, Anakin determined that he would strive to stay his emotions and divert everyone's attention to the more pressing matter at hand: what had happened. The one man who seemed to have knowledge of Padmé had spoken of her like she had died many years ago, which gave Anakin hope, as either he had been delusional, or there was far more at work here – meaning her fate might not be sealed.

Anakin stayed as he was, pondering what might have happened, slowly and methodically proposing and discarding theories, for hours, until eventually a slight tremor in the Force told him the others had sensed their destination drawing near. Breathing slowly, he began to extract himself from his meditative trance, uncrossing his legs and stretching himself out as he did so. Wincing slightly from the feeling, Anakin began to massage the blood back into his numbed legs and allowed his feet to carry him towards the bridge of the ship, bracing himself for the conflict he suspected was far from over – if the base that had sent them here was now a smouldering crater, he didn't hold much hope for the future of their new destination...

It took what he estimated was another 10 minutes before they exited hyperspace. Out of habit, they didn't land on the planet marked on the navicomputer, aware that piloting what he assumed was a large recognisably 'rebel' craft straight into a controlled area would immediately draw attention to themselves. Of the many lessons the Clone Wars had taught the Jedi, the importance of stealth was one of the most valuable and costly. Following a practised procedure, they decided to leave their main craft orbiting a small moon near the planet and disembark in the strange single-man fighters Anakin and Obi-Wan had discovered earlier.

Despite the carefully disciplined emotions of the four Jedi, there was a palpable air of suppressed excitement as they made their way to the hangar and began to inspect the ships. They bore a vague resemblance to Y-Wing fighters, mused Anakin, but instead of the two thruster columns at the back of the ship, these had two wing structures, protruding perpendicular to the rest of the craft. He also noted the vacant space for an astrodroid companion, but didn't feel it worthy of mentioning, given the inherent lack of droids on the main ship.

Having completed his initial inspection of the ship, Anakin wasted no time in getting behind the controls of his fighter and tentatively edging it out of the hangar. As soon as he was clear, his hesitance vanished as his pilots' instincts took over. Noticing a button resembling the one he would use to switch his Jedi fighter to an attack configuration, he eagerly pressed it, feeling the change in the controls immediately. The ship responded far more easily to his touch, moving faster and more nimbly than it had done before; as he began experimenting with the ship's capabilities, trying spins and rolls, he heard Obi-Wan's voice over the intercom, "Anakin, the 'X' shape, how did you do that?". Glancing back to try and identify what Kenobi was talking about, Anakin was startled to discover the rear wings of his ship had split apart to become 4 sperate extensions to the ship, forming what he assumed was an attack formation. Hurriedly, he relayed the information to the other masters, and watched as they slowly copied his discovery. To his surprise, Yoda seemed to have little trouble adapting to the ships, using the Force to compensate for his small stature's inability to reach all necessary controls.

Of the four of them, Anakin mastered the strange ships the fastest, which was unsurprising, given his extensive experience and love of piloting anything that would move. As a result of this, it was mutually accepted that he would be the one to lead the landing approach on the new base – focussing on remaining undetected until they determined the identities and intentions of the planet's inhabitants: everyone knew they couldn't bring themselves to allow another massacre to go unchallenged. The plan was for Anakin to fly a solo reconnaissance mission first, gathering information of the location of the place and identifying possible concealed landing spots to provide an escape option should the need arise. Once he had done that, he would lead the other Jedi in fast and low, hopefully slipping past any sentries or radar systems scanning for them.

Executing this manoeuvre was an extremely delicate matter, in order for it to work, Anakin had to remain undetected as he scouted for a landing spot, a simple enough task of flying high enough so as to avoid being spotted. However, the crucial flaw in that plan, which had been tried many times during their time as generals to great effect, was that now they were operating without a single astrodroid to control instruments such as scanners and mapping technology – Anakin would have to guess by what he could see from a small cockpit travelling at a speed fast enough to be close to undetectable. Even for the two Jedi famous for pulling off the most obscene plans in the past, this was too risky.

Reluctantly, a new idea was conceived – Yoda would build a mental picture of the human sentries monitoring the area and decide on what he thought was a genuine 'blind spot'. Once he had achieved this, he would relay the information to Anakin, who would lead the dive to the surface under the cover of night. An overwhelming tension flooded the comms in the ships as each Jedi grasped the gravity of the situation: they had one shot at this. If they were spotted on approach or during their subsequent escape, they would be deep in enemy territory with an alibi involving witnesses who had all suspiciously died in an ambush moments after meeting them and ships which would have been surrounded the moment they landed. Yoda appeared undeterred however, conveying the pinnacle of collected self-control as he slowly and methodically scanned for the Force signatures on the planet below, appearing satisfied he had caught the base perimeter guards after what Anakin guessed was ten minutes; he probed even deeper, searching for the distinctive traces of anyone who had tried to conceal themselves from detection. Eventually Anakin felt a presence pressing against his consciousness, recognising it as Yoda, he lowered his mental shields and was immediately granted a mental image of the plant below. It was concealed in a mountain surrounded by forest and at first glance appeared to have been abandoned long ago, but he could sense people concealed from sight in tall, thin towers built to resemble trees. _'Clever'_ , he thought briefly, making a note of where each one appeared to be and mentally planning the best route, constantly altering it as he addressed new difficulties with his old plans.

The easiest option, of course, would have been to create a distraction, but the worry that even a slight deviation from the normal routine of the planet would betray their presence stopped Anakin from suggesting it. The fact that none of the other Jedi chose to voice the idea led Anakin to believe that they had come to the same conclusion.

Once he was satisfied that his work in mentally mapping his route was flawless, he gave a subtle signal to the others to assume formation behind him, which they did, forming a single unit with the ships almost touching. After waiting for them to finish, Anakin drove his ship down suddenly, plummeting towards the oncoming jungle at a speed so fast it almost became a blur for him to sense. Within seconds, he was almost upon it, and violently pulled the nose upwards, levelling the ship out over the trees for mere moments before he was upon the small clearing he had discerned the position of from Yoda's scan of the terrain. Quickly, he rolled his fighter over, skimming upside down along the trees before the clearing was upon him and he drove the nose towards the ground, turning his thrusters towards the sky and briefly propelling himself straight at the ground, before completing the flip and firing the small thrusters on the bottom of his craft to kill most of his momentum.

Despite executing what could only be descried as a near-perfect manoeuvre, he landed hard, knocking the air out of his lungs, and sat gasping for a few moments, still feeling the effects of the adrenaline rush which had controlled his frantic descent. "Out of the four of us here, why did it have to be _him_ to lead the approach?" moaned Obi-Wan, landing seconds after Anakin touched down a small distance across the clearing. Anakin remained silent but heard Windu stifle laugh in response over the comms system, beginning the long and arduous task of sufficiently camouflaging his ship to avoid unwanted attention.

The process took a lot longer than he had expected, and light was beginning to creep into the sky in small streaks when the Jedi finally abandoned their ships to uncover whatever information they could about what had happened to them. In the semi-darkness, the four cloaked figures appeared to glide over to the edge of the jungle, vanishing into the shadows like phantoms and leaving the clearing deserted once again.

 **Thanks for reading, I hope people liked this chapter, and don't get too mad at me for taking my time to introduce the original trilogy characters to the story! They will feature, trust me. Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed this and for the support it's getting. Feel free to let me know if you have any ideas or things you want me to try (like more varied viewpoints etc) I'll try and accommodate as much as I can. Until then, enjoy! - AW117**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, or any of the places or characters in this story**

After what Windu guessed was half an hour of fighting their way almost silently through the dense jungle, in what felt like a bizarre combination of grace and clumsily applied force, they arrived at what appeared at first glance to be a wall of sheer, unbroken rock. Stretching his consciousness out through the Force, he felt nothing, almost letting his face betray his shock at the complexity of the illusion they were faced with. However, this feeling lasted only a few moments before he detected a small glimmer of a consciousness far within the seemingly solid wall and realised with a growing sense of trepidation that the base wasn't hiding the rest of the sizeable 'rebel force' the unnamed man they had met on the now ransacked base had implied – it was simply almost abandoned.

Instantly wary for a trap, Windu stole closer. Now he was looking for them, signs of conflict were evident, blackened marks along the cliff walls couldn't be mistaken for anything other than blaster fire, and an occasional boot print, blurred around the edges, almost frozen in the clay-like surface, told of many soldiers marching over the same spot – unmistakable for an army. Despite this news, however, Windu felt himself relax. The blackened marks had been deformed from perfect round marks to jagged pockmarks in the cliff surface by months or even years of weathering, and only few preserved footprints remained in more solid surfaces. Windu was familiar with these signs, a troop had been sent here, presumably on an eradication mission if he was to guess, but had left empty-handed, judging by the lack of any signs of resistance or retaliation. They were alone here. Alone, except for whoever had been left to monitor the base, meaning there was still something there…

Making a brief assessment of the known viable entry points, he began to formulate a plan of entry, accounting for where he guessed sensors and traps would have been laid to slow enemy troops. From what he could tell, whoever had been here before them had focussed their assault on the rock wall, which he assumed held some form of concealed entrance, marking it as the obvious entry point. Naturally, he discarded this option with minimal consideration, it seemed to have held off whoever had attacked before them, so was obviously strongly defended, even if manned by a skeleton force at present, and more importantly was where they would be detected fastest. As strongly as Windu wished he was at liberty to reveal himself, the gravity of the situation demanded that the Jedi remained concealed, until they found someone who they could be certain of trusting, stealth remained their greatest ally.

To his satisfaction, his plan was greeted with murmured agreement and satisfaction, taking only a few hours to address the flaws and make as close to perfect as their limited time and resources would allow. When everything had been decided, they retreated to their ships to try and salvage the components they would need to construct a makeshift data logger. As Windu had instructed, Anakin immediately set to work, with Obi-Wan trying his best to assist. Meanwhile, Windu and Yoda retreated into the corner of the clearing to meditate and reflect on their situation. Slowly, Windu let his eyes wander over to Anakin working on the ship, becoming transfixed by the gleaming mass of metal floating in front of him, constantly turning and changing as the Jedi altered its position in the air with the Force, or tried new components salvaged from the ships in different locations, seemingly with varying degrees of success. In his meditative state, Windu began to feel himself admire the young man's skill. His thought process was abruptly cut short by a small chuckle from Yoda, who was perched on an earthen mound to his left. He shot a sideways glance at the Jedi Grandmaster, who pretended to be transfixed by a large butterfly fluttering near the first tree branches nearby. Not needing confirmation to know that he had given himself away, he allowed himself a wry smile – he was warming to Skywalker despite himself – the Jedi had proven he could be trusted, even despite his sometimes-loose interpretation of orders of the Jedi Code, a practice Windu was finding it difficult to accept.

As evening drew near and darkness began to creep around the camp, a murmur of 'got it!' from Anakin alerted them that their plan could begin in earnest. Travelling light, having already disguised their ships again whilst Anakin finalised the device, the four Jedi began to move towards the base, travelling at an angle to the route they had used before, climbing the ground to gain altitude on the base as they approached. As they walked, they became increasingly aware of the ground on either side of them dropping away, leaving a narrow ridge as the only space for them to fight past the seemingly endless thicket of trees that barred their path. For some time, they laboured on in silence, until Windu heard a muffled curse from Anakin, who had coincidentally again ended at the front of the party, and fought his way through the last section of undergrowth, emerging onto a rocky outcrop, which protruded slightly from the cliff face beneath them and ended in thin air. The cliff on the opposite side of the ravine began what he guessed might have been fifteen metres away, very effectively blocking their path.

Calmly, he walked up the lip of the outcrop, turning to face Anakin, who had become noticeably disheartened, and with the nonchalant remark of 'to throw off a trail', by way of explanation, launched himself over the edge. Using the Force to augment his jump, Windu sailed easily over the gap, twisting himself slightly the finish the flip, and landing lightly on the other side of the gorge. Quickly, the other Jedi followed, executing similar flips to his own or propelling themselves through the air with the Force, in the case of Yoda.

Satisfied they were not being followed, Windu led their new course, cutting a hard-fought path through the dense undergrowth with the occasional calculated swing of his lightsabre; suddenly, he froze and dropped into a crouch, slowly creeping towards a metal structure which protruded from the dense jungle canopy what he guessed was a kilometre away. He soon realised there was no need, however, as even as he reached the base, he realised he could feel no life forms nearby – the area was deserted. Approaching the door, he began to inwardly marvel at the complexity of the lock. _'Even the smallest things are more advanced now'_ , he thought to himself, _'but they seem to have almost forgotten that some of us still use the old methods'_. Reaching out with the Force, he concentrated hard for a few moments and gave the door a small nonchalant nudge, causing it to swing open seemingly of its own accord. Despite the ease with which he had forced with way through the lock, Windu felt a twinge of unease – as the mechanism swung open to reveal layers of welded reinforced steel, he realised it had been built with the sole purpose of withstanding a ground invasion, there didn't appear to be any direct defence against Force users in the design. If whoever designed the building hadn't even considered the Jedi, then what had happened to them?

Cautiously, he ventured forwards into the darkness, feeling his way in front of him with the Force to check for concealed dangers or attackers, reaching a rusty metal ladder set into the wall before long. Searching the ground below for any sign of life, he stepped forward into the ladder shaft: and dropped into nothing. For a few seconds, he fell through the darkness, before using the Force to slightly slow his descent and alighting softly on the rough stone which formed the base of the corridor which he now found himself in. Silently, he heard the others land behind him and assume an automatic formation to ensure they wouldn't be ambushed – they had suffered too many losses during their years as generals to risk becoming complacent.

As he had hoped, the overhead twisted metal light casings remained inactive, this area had apparently been out of use for many years. The walls were beginning to show signs of age, with small spider-like cracks working their way through the structure and a thick layer of dust, which seemed to cling to everything. They trod lightly, but a faint imprint of their boots was still visible to anyone who knew what to look for. Windu heard a slight disturbance behind him and spun to face whatever had caused it. To his relief, the source revealed itself to be no more than Yoda, who had brought up the rear of the group and was lightly using the Force the create swirls in the dust to mask their tracks. Wordlessly, Windu shot a nod of thanks in the Grandmaster's direction and continued forward. After what he guessed could have been no more than twenty minutes, the party reached a split in the corridor. To their left, the corridor continued, identical to the one behind them; the corridor on the right was very similar but began to pitch slightly downwards – moving whoever took it further into the ground and deeper into what he guessed was the main base, instead of passages connecting defence positions.

He frowned slightly as he registered the new information, realising they were now faced with the choice, search the base as a group, or split up to cover more ground faster. As he began to ponder the dilemma, he heard a voice speak from behind him, "right, will go Kenobi and Skywalker, left, will go Windu and myself". He opened his mouth to counter the idea but was cut off before he started speaking by Yoda, who continued his point, saying, "a traitor in their midst, these people have; discovered, this place will have been". It was a good point, forcing him to cease any objections he still had.

In a few moments, they had decided that he and Yoda would venture further into the base, whilst Anakin and Obi-Wan would skirt it along the left passage and enter later if they found more braches, re-grouping somewhere towards the centre. With that decided, the group finally broke off for the first time, with both pairs melting into the darkness, hoping to find a clue to their current situation, and why it had been thrust upon them.

 **Sorry for the slow update there, I know this is getting a bit slow, and most of you just want me to hurry up and get to the twins. My plans so far are for one of them to finally appear in the next chapter! This is taking a bit longer than I thought it would to write, as there's a lot of stuff I'm trying to fit into it, so bear with, and have faith that it will pick up again very soon... See you guys in the next chapter - AW117**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: as much as I wish I owned Star Wars… I still don't**

For the fifth time that day, Anakin swore under his breath. The wall in front of him stared back as it had the last times, cold and unforgiving.  
"Another dead end, Master", he called into the blackness.  
"Have faith Anakin, there will be an entrance here eventually", came Obi-Wan's reply, followed a moment later by a quiet curse of his own.  
"Master, these are cave-ins; even if they were once passages, they're long gone. Remember, on the last one, the roof almost collapsed on us! Let's just get to the main area and work our way out from there…"

As valiant as his persuasive effort was, it was also in vain, as he had known it would be and, still complaining to himself, he resigned himself to another hour of shifting rocks in the dark.  
"Anakin!" The cry was short, sharp and so unexpected that he reacted immediately, instinctively diving against the collapsed rubble as cover. However, a moment later, he sensed it too, a presence, mere metres from where he lay: in what should have been solid rubble.

Quietly, he pushed himself back up to his feet, and dug around in his belt for a short, dulled blade, which he kept on him for situations such as this one. Finding it, he began to feel his way along the rock wall on one side, prying open any cracks or loose rocks as he found them. He didn't look directly for a mechanism, which he knew would be too well hidden to find without the proper light or tools and was probably remotely operated anyway. Instead he searched for loose wires hastily concealed after the cave-in, or other tell-tale signs of the workings of a hidden contraption, which were often harder to conceal than the contraption itself.

Having probably arrived at a similar conclusion, Anakin heard Obi-Wan begin to do the same, feeling his way along the other wall. This was not their first time hunting for a concealed entrance, so they stayed silent, slowly and methodically working their way along the wall in a well-practised routine. He let his hands pass over the roughly hewn stone of the wall, desperately feeling for any irregularity in its surface which might betray a power supply or concealed hinge to open the door. He felt nothing.

Eventually, the presence they had felt on the other side of the rubble barrier began to fade, receding away from them. Anakin swore under his breath.  
"Do you feel that Master? The entrance must be on the other side."  
"I do." The reply was short and punctual. Sighing heavily, Anakin turned to go, reasoning that remaining undetected was more important than sating his curiosity over the room. He had gone almost five steps when he realised Obi-Wan wasn't with him. The Jedi Master was standing against the wall, eyes closed and concentrating hard. "They've stopped," he said, "stopped dead. They know we're here."  
"And they haven't run," finished Anakin, "which means the entrance is here, and there's only one – poor planning."  
"They must have though secrecy would be their best option…" remarked Obi-Wan, hand still pressed against the wall, but the expression on his face less focussed, more serene. Anakin wasn't fooled, he recognised the look instantly from his many hours spent staring at it whilst waiting for an advancement in one of the countless battles they had fought together during the clone wars. Obi-Wan was expanding his mind to encompass the surrounding area, probably to search for surveillance droids, cameras or another method the mysterious person concealed in the room could be spying on the with.

After a few moments, the look faded from the Jedi Master's face and he relaxed, giving a minute but satisfied shake of his head. They weren't being watched, one of them must have triggered some type of warning system when trying to detect the mechanism to open what Anakin was now thoroughly convinced was a secret door.

"Wouldn't a place as remote as this almost abandoned tiny outcrop in the middle of a sprawling jungle on a tiny moon be remote enough?" Anakin asked incredulously, continuing from where Obi-Wan had trailed off earlier, "what are they trying to do, the only people they'll be avoiding here are their own forces."

They both reached the same conclusion immediately, calmly stating, "traitor", in unison. Both men had endured too much betrayal not to be able to spot signs as obvious as these. However, as Anakin began to formulate a plan to force their way through the door, Obi-Wan began to reconsider his initial conclusion. "Unless," he reasoned, "like us, they were aware of the corruption within their forces and wanted to plan and attack or co-ordinate a relocation without those clone troopers intercepting them."  
"Those weren't clone troopers", Anakin remarked quickly.  
"How can you tell?"  
"Clone troopers fight in specific regiments, organised, methodical in who and what they fire at, those troops were disciplined but trigger-happy, they shot everything that moved, their helmets were a slightly misaligned and their footsteps were far louder than ordinary clone troopers…"  
Obi-Wan sighed and shook his head, waiting for the Jedi to tell him how he had actually reached that conclusion. After a few seconds, Anakin began to laugh and, shaking his head, admitted that, "all clone troopers have very similar Force signatures – Jango Fett's – you can tell them apart, but it requires concentration. These were everywhere, they were different people outfitted in clone armour."

Impressed, Obi-Wan laughed and inclined his head slightly, managing to say between chuckles, "I'll admit it, you had me there for a moment," before going back to the more serious topic at hand, "as I was saying though, to avoid being intercepted by these, 'stormtroopers' I think I remember them being called, perhaps they simply use this room as a way to communicate with those they know aren't corrupt."  
This though forced Anakin to pause for a moment, "what do you propose?" he ventured after a few moments.  
"Whoever's in there doesn't know our identities or our exact position, that gives us an advantage. We know that they have sensors to detect interference with the walls or floor, possibly both, so I suggest we set a trap from the one place they won't be expecting, the ceiling. We'll cut a groove with our lightsabres, you go close to the door, I'll go down the corridor."  
"And what then?"  
"Then, they spring the trap. As they pass down the corridor, they'll be forced to travel underneath your position, at which point we'll drop, catching them in the corridor with nowhere to run." Obi-Wan finished explaining the final detail of his plan with a slight relish.

Anakin agreed without hesitation, immediately going about finding a suitable spot on the ceiling which he'd be able to press himself flat against, eventually finding a small crack which he could wedge his feet into, and a small handhold which he could grasp. Trialling the position, he stretched himself taught between the two hang points, experiencing the disconcerting feeling of watching his body melt into the shadows. Confident that this wouldn't put too much strain on his limbs, he checked to see how Obi-Wan was managing, watching his former master find a very similar spot to his own and disappear into the darkness above him. As an afterthought, he freed a hand and slowly moved two of the stones from the fallen rock pile in blocking the passage back the way they had come, bumping them along the floor often at a constant pace, to create the illusion to any sensors that the people investigating the apparently mundane wall of rock had finally retreated to elsewhere in the base. Satisfied that his stones were far enough down the corridor so as to not be immediately visible to anyone leaving what they had guessed was the entrance to the hidden room and reveal their deception, he released his control over them, hearing a slight clatter as the fell to the floor, and resigned himself to waiting for something to happen.

Anakin was impatient at the best of times. Clinging to a rock ceiling with his body flattened against it, waiting for something to happen without knowing for certain if anything ever would, and limbs which, despite being aided by his skill with the Force, which Anakin used to relieve some of the pressure on them by parentally supporting his weight, felt like they were beginning to burn with the effort, his patience was dwindling fast.

Just as he was about to suggest they rethink the plan, or find more comfortable positions to wait in, the wall of rock behind them began to move. Anakin pressed himself as tightly as he could against the section of roof he clung to and watched as the supposedly solid wall of rubble sank smoothly into the ground, leaving nothing more than a slightly uneven surface akin to the rest of the passage as a way out of the space behind it. What occupied the room in concealed began to burn at Anakin's curiosity, but he didn't dare so much as flinch for fear of betraying his position to the figure who exited the room now. They were dressed into a dirty leather jacket and trousers, with a helmet slung under one arm, the look was very distinctive, and Anakin swore under his breath at the sight of the bounty hunter. Nevertheless, he kept his body rigid, and didn't dare move from his position until Obi-Wan set the trap. There was something strange about this particular bounty hunter, he mused as they passed underneath him, a regal air in the way the walked and held themselves and a long coil of light brown hair snaking down over their ' _her_ ' he corrected himself shoulder which he would have guessed was too long to comfortably fit inside the small helmet. The longer he looked, impassively, using the Force to guide his mind, the more he realised that the woman passing underneath him wasn't used to wearing the costume, she was playing a double-role, preparing to infiltrate somewhere…

He heard Obi-Wan drop quietly in further down the passage, blocking any further advance for the woman. On cue, he did the same, dropping into a crouch as he landed to soften the noise made by his impact. The woman noticed Obi-Wan immediately and whirled around, only to find Anakin now standing only metres behind her. She reacted fast, seemingly out of instinct, dropping into the half crouch, whipping a blaster pistol from its holster and straightening up with it primed and aimed at Obi-Wan in what almost appeared like a reflex. "Get out of my way", it was a statement, not a question, nor a command, she formed demand coolly and with a calmness which made Anakin wonder how many similar situations she had been in before this one. If she felt any fear, it wasn't betrayed on her features, which remained hardened and determined and the sought to stare down the older Jedi.

Obi-Wan didn't flinch at the prospect of being shot. In contrast to any nervousness the woman seemed to be expecting, there was a slight mirth in his eyes as he responded in kind, "we haven't come to do you any harm my lady, but we need to see the room behind you." At this, the woman visibly tensed, and Anakin saw her apply a slight pressure to the trigger with her finger, preparing herself to fire should the need arise. He kept quiet, however, confident that Obi-Wan would have noticed it as well. "This is your final warning," the woman said, "move or I _will_ fire".  
"As you do well to," Obi-Wan responded, "but I would advise against it, you could, however, tell us your name, you'll see there's no need to –"

Whatever he was going to say next, Obi-Wan's statement was cut short by a blaster bolt being fired at a point just over his left shoulder. However, the Jedi Master had been prepared for this, and in one swift motion, he called his lightsabre to his hand, activated it, and traced a small half circle over his left side wide the blade, catching the bolt just in front of his shoulder and sending back on an almost identical trajectory to pass harmlessly over the woman's right shoulder. The moment he did this, Anakin had activated his own blade and moved behind her to prevent an attempt to bolt and warn the rest of the base to their presence. However, whilst she had initially tensed as if to run after she had fired, the woman froze the instant she laid eyes on Obi-Wan's blade.

"A Jedi," she breathed, "so some of you did survive the purges… I see now that we need to talk, my name was formerly Princess Leia of Alderaan, I now owe my complete allegiance to the rebellion. Come, we have many things to discuss." Her sudden change of mood confused Anakin, but despite the confusion and questions her words had brought, he didn't sense dishonesty in her voice, and walked with her back the way she had come, past the wall of rubble, which began to rise closed again behind them, and into the room behind.

 **Hello again everyone, sorry about the delay in posting, it's taking me a little longer to write these chapters, but be patient, I haven't forgotten about this, I'm just trying to find the time to properly advance the story without destroying everything in a mad rush to post. Hopefully you can forgive me for that! And as promised, look who finally showed up… this is where the story will begin to get properly interesting for you all I hope, so enjoy! – AW117**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I still don't own any of these characters or ideas, however much I wish I did**

Obi-Wan didn't know what he'd been expecting, a lavish base of operations, a corridor leading to a secret hangar: whatever it was, the simple room which lay before him now wasn't it. The rough-hewn walls formed a small dome, centred around small table with a small device set in it which he recognised as a holographic communications device. There were a few spindly chairs and a screen displaying a primitive outline of the room and passage beyond – so this was the warning system he had guessed earlier, Obi-Wan mused. Even as he watched, three red dots were shown to vanish from the passage outside and disappear into the room, ' _primitive_ ' he pondered; the room had obviously been built in a hurry by a skeleton crew, a secrecy Obi-Wan hadn't fully grasped the reason for yet.

In stark contrast to the apparent enigmatic secretive construction of the room, its purpose was strikingly obvious. The whole space was centred around the holographic table – the purpose of which he was positive the woman – Leia, he corrected himself – would explain in a moment, patience was key. The only other noteworthy thing about the space was a pair of dice on a chain which hung suspended above the table in the domed centre of the room's ceiling, lit by the dull glow of a solitary overhead lamp. Initially, Obi-Wan dismissed the dice as a trivial attempt to decorate and add a hint of personality to the otherwise surprisingly barren area but began to sense a deeper meaning to them when he noticed Leia's eyes begin to constantly flick back to the dice, as if for support, as she searched for the words to address the two Jedi. Again however, he could glean no deeper meaning from the glances, or begin to guess the meaning behind them, and he began to feel a dull sense of frustration gnawing at his gut.

To his surprise, Anakin's approach to the conversation was calm and diplomatic. "Your Highness," he began, eliciting a small laugh from Leia at his formality, "would you mind explaining… everything." It was a short, succinct point, and Obi-Wan could guess why as he listened. His former apprentice's voice sounded strangely choked, surprising the Jedi Master and causing him to glance around the room out of concern for what had caused such a grave change from Anakin's usual bravado. There was nothing unusual or particularly remarkable about the room that he could discern except for the table in the middle, which stood, dull and lifeless, hardly capable of causing such a reaction in the young Jedi. The dice hanging from the ceiling seemed to be of great sentimental value to the princess, but as he watched, Anakin gave no sign of so much as noticing they were there. Finally resigning himself to following his gaze, Obi-Wan's own eyes fell upon the woman. The clothes she wore were unremarkable, a durable light brown cloth and shoulder belt, which he guessed would be worn for practicality. The helmet sitting next to her was slightly more intriguing, consisting of a voice distorter and raised eye slit to allow the wearer to maintain their anonymity. It was classic bounty hunter disguise, so possibly memories of Tatooine were the cause of Anakin's distress. He dismissed the idea quickly and glanced around again, finally settling his gaze back on the princess, who was about to begin answering 'everything', as Anakin had so eloquently phrased it.

The realisation came slowly, but when it did, it hit him hard. His first clue were the eyes, soft and kind, but hiding an ever-present strength of character. They were remarkable in a politician, but what struck Obi-Wan was that he had seen them only once before, in a young senator who, now that he was looking, shared the same facial features, spoken mannerisms and even hair colour. The woman in front of him was an exact image of Padmé Amidala. In the heat of the moment, he berated himself for not having noticed the similarity earlier. He began to understand the reason for Anakin's solemn attitude now, the two had been very close.

He was snapped out of his thoughts a moment later when the princess started speaking and determined to ask about the nature of the resemblance when she had finished speaking, more specifically, why someone who had such obvious ties with the senator of Naboo would introduce themselves as the princess of Alderaan. However, as the princess began to speak, he calmed himself and listened to her with rapt attention, hoping to finally have some of the answers which had been eluding them since they had first arrived.

* * *

Yoda was a master of stealth, though he didn't look it. His small fleeting figure made him appear like no more than a shadow as he darted through the darkened corridors further and further into the ground. The occasional guard would occasionally be stationed at branches along the left side of the corridor, trying in vain to look intimidating and attentive in the face of a blackness which, at Yoda's best guess, they had been staring at for months without incident. In spite of himself, he felt a sense of admiration for the men who still held their positions with must seem like so little reason. His admiration didn't cloud his judgement however, and not one of them noticed the Jedi Grandmaster as he passed. There was little surprise for Yoda in that regard, the Force was his ally and every surface was a way to outmanoeuvre and outwit an enemy, he slipped past them along walls and ceilings, sticking to the shadows and following the main passage until either it ended, or if he was correct, he met Windu. The two Jedi has split up a while ago to test a theory that Yoda had formed shortly after entering the main passage – they were going in circles.

They hadn't taken the decision to split up lightly and had devoted a lot of thought and deliberation to the matter before finally deciding. The idea was to simultaneously search for an unmanned entrance and a possible escape route if their infiltration of the guarded sector should fail. Yoda could sense that the people barring their path weren't clones or droids, finding himself able to even catch glimpses of their thoughts, feelings and lives outside soldiering if he so desired.

Unlike the foes he had faced in the past, these people weren't mindless, they weren't evil, they were doing a duty – he couldn't condemn them for that. However, in any situation, there were always countless solutions and possibilities, and in the absence of violence or diplomacy, Yoda decided to use a distraction. Gently, he reached out through the Force and pushed gently at the ceiling of the passage leading away from his position and the guarded corridor, honing it to a point on a small crack he had sensed as a weak spot. The result was immediate as the large slab of rock began to grind against itself over a network of spidering cracks from the epicentre where Yoda had aimed. A few small rocks fell from the ceiling with a small clatter, but mercifully the passage held to cover his escape should he need it to. Yoda smiled to himself at the eloquence of the situation as moments later the guards surged around the corner without even sparing a glance in his direction to cautiously try and assess the integrity of the passage.

With a well-practiced ease, he slipped past the men still utterly engrossed in their inspection of the passage and crept along the passage, remaining vigilant for anything that might herald danger or, more importantly, answers. He kept moving along the darkened tunnel for a while without incident and was faintly aware of himself beginning to entertain the idea of an escape tunnel leading to a secret exit concealed in the jungle when he came to a fork in the path he'd been following. The two hallways in front of him were nearly identical, lit by the occasional weak lamp to give both a lifeless, artificial presence which stretched on until his eyes grew tired of trying to discern what was at the end of them. Tentatively, he reached out through the Force to sense if the guards' presence was concentrated down a specific fork. To his surprise, however, he felt nothing other than a solitary figure coming towards him at pace down the right-hand fork. Smiling to himself quietly, Yoda glanced around, swiftly identifying a loose rock, which pierced the dull monotony of the wash of light with the shadow it cast. Fortunately for Yoda, the shadow was large enough to conceal him, and he blended into it with ease, appearing to vanish to anyone who didn't know how to find him.

Ultimately, the precaution was unneeded, however, and the person who Yoda had felt approaching through the Force stole into the room without incident. Immediately relaxing, Yoda emerged from his hiding place to greet his fellow Jedi.  
"Found anything, have you?"  
"More guards, but nothing useful to us… no mention of Anakin or Obi-Wan yet, so I'm assuming they remain undiscovered as well."  
"Good news, this can only be," mused Yoda.  
"I only hope they managed to find a way in", joked Windu. "This isn't a small area, and the server rooms or data bases we need could be located anywhere, our best chance for the moment though appears to be heading even deeper…" he finished with some concern.

Yoda graced him with a small nod as an answer and silently the pair began to move down the left-hand fork, feeling the floor begin to slope away beneath them with a growing sense of unease. They were heading deeper into potentially hostile territory with a single, volatile escape route which could be reinforced or even collapse in moments, sealing the in. Every instinct they had honed through trial and suffering during the Clone Wars screamed at them to stop and plan, to retreat to a safe distance. Fighting hard to quell this growing sense of unease, the two Jedi journeyed in a grave and solemn silence for some time, noting with a small sense of satisfaction the increasing level of openings and access tunnels beginning to appear on either side of the main passage.

As they walked, Windu noted with interest that the areas they had seen so far seemed to have been neglected to years, with the crumbling stone of the walls and ceiling often exhibiting spier-like cracks expanding slowly across the uneven surface, patches of moss and lichen covering the damper areas and the remains of a once presumably sophisticated infrastructure of electronics and lighting systems strewn across the roughly-hewn rock floor. However, there were also occasional inconsistencies in the abandoned atmosphere. The branching tendrils of one of the cracks would form a pattern mirroring that of one in another few hundred metres, the moss against a wall would be flatter in one area than another, as if it had been brushed against repeatedly since being planted. Whilst so minor as to be almost imperceptible, these details had awakened a suspicion in Windu that the abandoned base was a façade for another purpose. This suspicion was only strengthened as the two masters neared the end of the corridor and the meticulously crafted signs of decay began to falter. The moss became patchy, growing only out of the occasional crack in the wall, which were becoming sparser in themselves. Gradually, the floor became smoother, as the rough-hewn jaggedness began to give way to the smooth finish of a dark grey path, seemingly carved out of the rock with far greater skill than the previous areas. With growing concern, he voiced his suspicions to Yoda, "I'm beginning to fear we're not alone here."  
"Hmm… Right, I feel you are."  
"Then surely we must warn the others, my friend, they could be walking into a trap!"  
"So sure, are you, that these people are a threat?", queried Yoda, "know we were coming, they could not, and still hidden, they were."  
"If these people are hostile, then even if the comms would be effective this far underground, I assume by the time we could reach Obi-Wan and Anakin they would have found out themselves", sighed Windu dryly, "let's continue our own search then my friend, and uncover that for ourselves."

What had initially begun as an implied concern based on years of ambush experience during the Clone Wars was quickly validated. A little further along the corridor, Windu had an opening concealed behind the seemingly solid wall. Applying some pressure with the Force, he felt the wall segment buckle and collapse in front of him, revealing a passageway wide enough for three men to comfortably stand abreast in, with the shattered debris of the door having once obviously been supported by two steel hinges sliding back into the roof on runners to form a perfectly concealed hidden entrance. Without hesitation, he ducked inside, replacing the strewn debris which had moments ago seamlessly hidden the passage back into position in a crude attempt to conceal themselves once again.

Out of precaution, he avoided activating his lightsabre, whilst it provided him with the luxury of being able to see the path ahead, he was aware of the beacon it would provide for anyone who considered him a threat. Yoda had seemed to reach a similar conclusion, as the Jedi grandmaster shuffled ahead, using his gnarled stick to feel for areas of uneven ground. This process continued in silence for some time, but even deprived of any information with which to accurately discern his location, Windu could feel they were getting closer. The faint traces of life they had felt so long ago in their initial scouting expedition of the base were growing in intensity as they neared what he could only assume would be the central complex. Enough time had passed that he was in the process of making an assessment on whether the current tunnel they were journeying down was unoccupied enough to allow for the use of his lightsabre to remain undetected when Yoda returned from somewhere further along the path.  
"Come here, you must," the Jedi began, "information ahead, I have found."  
"I trust you have considered this may just be a trap?"  
"And a trap, for who, might I ask? Destroyed, this place appears, and expecting us, they were not."  
"I assume the tunnel leads to a type of main complex, or at least living quarters where we can access this information from?"  
"Correct, you would be. A room, connecting many tunnels, there is. Access the system from there, we may."  
"And in the case of a trap?"  
"Sprung, it will be."  
"Agreed. I'm tired hiding from the people who we were told should be our allies, let's find out what we're up against."

Further along the tunnel, as Yoda had promised, the mouth sloped away and widened to become a uniformly lit perfectly circular room with a large dust-laden console occupying the centre. The entrance they had just entered through, Windu noted, was one of several identical such structures replicated at even intervals around the room, all appearing as an impenetrable dark mass in contrast to the dull white light illuminating the room. "No cover…" Windu muttered to himself as the two Jedi entered, attempting to sense any signs of someone waiting in an adjacent tunnel as an ambush, "someone could come from any one of these at any time and we'd barely be able to see them until it was too late."  
"Fear not, you must; sense them, we will", Yoda reassured him, confidently shuffling to the seemingly neglected console in the middle of the room. To Windu's mild surprise, the console flared to life immediately under the Jedi's touch, and an orb-like structure materialised in front of them. The hologram resembled a small moon in dimensions, but any similarity ceased there, as the indent driven into a large portion of the moon's surface appeared to house a dish of unknown function to the Jedi Master. He was on the verge of trying to discern the purpose and origin of what he could only assume was a unique classification of exoplanet when Yoda spoke up.  
"Company, we will have soon I feel."  
"Give me a moment my friend, there's something unfamiliar about this planet, part of the surface here has been sunk to resemble a dish, unlikely to be purely for the collection of solar energy, yet I can't discern any other function it might play. And this highlighted area here, there's an opening resembling one of the Separatist battle station exhaust ports, there's even a corresponding adjacent trench system…" he trailed off, hesitantly posing his next question, "what kind of planet is this?"  
"A planet, this is not", replied Yoda.

"Your friend is right," interrupted a feminine voice from the shadows of one of the many identical corridors, "we called it the Death Star, although I trust you were familiar with that name, Imperial spies always targeted our schematics".

"Whoever you are, I can assure you we have no affiliation with these spies. What I would be interested to know is the purpose of that _'Death Star'_ , as you called it?"

"You make a very poor excuse for a spy indeed, following the destruction Alderaan, entire systems were at the mercy of the very name of that station. Feigned ignorance will not save you. I should warn you now that there are over a dozen men trained on your position, one wrong move and –"

"They would die before they could comprehend their mistake", Windu cut her off, "I'll ask this one time. What happened on Alderaan?" He punctuated his question by drawing his lightsabre, flourishing it briefly before angling it in the direction the voice was coming from. As he drew his weapon, Yoda acted, simultaneously ripping what must have been fifteen blaster rifles from the hands of concealed troops and depositing them harmlessly in a neat pile against the console.

"Jedi?", the woman's voice wavered, as if unable to comprehend what she was before her eyes, "stand down," she added somewhat pointlessly to the recently disarmed troops concealed, Windu guessed, in the other passageways. Slowly, a figure emerged into the centre of the room, she was garbed in a modest white robe, which stood in stark contrast to her light red hair and kindly yet steely grey eyes. A brief shock of recognition ran through the Jedi Mater, even as the former senator introduced herself, "not on Alderaan, _to_ Alderaan. It was destroyed completely, reduced to rubble. We lost a good many people that day, and I feared it had confirmed me as the last surviving relic of the Republic not yet loyal to the Empire, until you appeared: the only surviving Republic Jedi."loyal to the Empire, until you appeared: the only surviving Republic Jedi."

 **I know it's been a long time since this was last updated, but I'm lacking a lot of the free time I used to have and to properly do the story justice the chapters have just grown longer and longer... I'm definitely going to finish it, but I can't give any sort of time frame yet (partially as I don't know how long it's actually going yo go on for yet!) Until then, I hope this has been worth the wait and you enjoyed the read.**

 **\- AW**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: in the time it's taken me to post a new chapter… I still haven't managed to start owning anything referenced here**

Leia spoke for a long time. Quietly and succinctly she recounted how the Republic had crumbled, the Jedi had been massacred, and anyone who had championed peace and freedom had been hunted down and executed by agents of the Empire. The two Jedi, for their part, remained silent, with the only traces of the internal horror they were feeling being isolated to the occasional twitch at the corners of their mouths as they fought to keep themselves from grimacing. As she finished, neither Jedi moved to speak; they sat, motionless in thought, contemplating what they had heard and desperately trying to find an inconsistency in the tale which would reveal it as a farce, a hoax to manipulate them and play on their emotions. Leia's feelings betrayed nothing but a muted sadness, but her face remained calm and resolute as she continued. **  
**

"How two Jedi were able to evade the purges and still have such little knowledge of the Empire strikes me as suspicious. Even in our current situation, I'm afraid trust is a luxury I simply cannot afford, so I will give you one chance to explain yourselves. If I can't trust or don't like what I hear, any traces of your anonymity will vanish as you will find this base is vastly less decrepit than you may perceive. Are we clear?" she finished almost mockingly.

To Anakin's surprise, as he began his own carefully crafted response, Obi-Wan interjected, seemingly effortlessly, "I'm sorry for the discrepancies in our knowledge my lady. Unfortunately, we were saved from the purges by the pure chance which so many of our brethren were apparently so cruelly denied. Shortly before the end of the clone wars, we were tasked with infiltrating and liberating a fellow Jedi from a Separatist homeworld. Due to the high value of the prisoner, bioscanning procedures were in operation surrounding the facility he was held at, a plan we hoped to circumvent by freezing ourselves in carbonite until we had successfully bypassed the scanners. We never learned what happened to the team tasked with unfreezing us inside the facility, but I fear the worst. I gather you can determine the rest, a power outage caused by wayward debris colliding with the base shield disrupted the power from where we had been stored following our infiltration, causing the system to malfunction and unfreeze my friend here." At this point he gestured to Anakin, who had noted with interest how the princess' calm and reserved demeanour was gradually becoming more attentive as she listened to Obi-Wan's story. As the Jedi casually concluded his story, Anakin was curious to see a look of something he couldn't place flicker across her face, "once free, he released me, we escaped and encountered an officer of yours who directed us here." Obviously, as he had expected, the brief summary was not enough for the princess; she demanded the details on how the escape had been made, the grade of carbon-freezing and nature of the area they were held.

None of this in isolation would have betrayed her true feelings, but Anakin could tell she was desperate. All her questions were directed specifically towards the carbonite: how they had escaped, where they had been stored, whether their survival for so long was due solely to the fact they were Jedi. Obi-Wan answered deftly and flawlessly, drawing on their own experiences executing a similar plan during the Clone Wars for plausibility, with Anakin interjecting occasionally in between bouts of contemplation over her true motive. After a few minutes, it hit him. Cursing silently under his breath at his own incompetence, he suddenly spoke up, cutting Leia off, who was in the midst of forming another question.

"Who was it?", he left the question hanging unexplained for a brief moment before elaborating, "they obviously meant a lot to you, so I'll tell you this, there's no pain. When your frozen, you remember nothing, you feel nothing… they won't be dead, if that's what your worry is." Faced only by uncomprehending stares at his statement, he continued, "your questions about the carbonite, it was the only time you dropped your guard and displayed your true emotions. You're desperate." It was not a question. "I don't know who they took from you, but we can help you get them back, we just need to know what's happened while we were… frozen", he tailed off.

Immediately, he could sense that what he said had worked, the princess' face softened, and she glanced briefly at the dice suspended from the ceiling. When she spoke, it was with a hint of regret, "I couldn't save him… I knew they were leading us into a trap, but I couldn't save him"  
"Save who?"  
"A friend of mine, a smuggler who first defected to the rebels as part of a vigilante rescue force for me. He was instrumental in the destruction of the first Death Star, saved Luke's life on Hoth, and then got frozen to use as bait for him. And I was powerless to stop it", she finished bitterly.  
"So how long ago did this 'Luke' get frozen?", inquired Obi-Wan questioningly.  
"He's not," she replied curtly, then her voice softened again and she spoke, "my apologies, I realise there is a lot to inform you of, and not much time in which to do so. Come, it would be best if we do this together."  
"Does what?" inquired Anakin questioningly.  
"Explain. You want answers, and if you'll get them from anyone, it will be him. I'll set a course for Tatooine, we can arrange a rendezvous point as we approach".

At the mention of his former homeworld, Anakin felt himself stiffen. However, Leia's voice had suggested a sense of finality in her final statement, so he diligently worked to maintain his calm and relaxed demeanour as the trio slowly moved down the long corridors of the complex towards where he assumed a hangar would be located. To his relief, his instincts proved flawless and after some time spent navigating the seemingly endless dimly lit paths, he noticed they were beginning to gradually widen, eventually opening into a modest and almost barren hangar. Only a few ships remained inside, which Leia briefly explained by noting that the base was currently only being used as a temporary respite for planning confined group or solo missions, with minimal activity allowing it to evade the attention of the Empire.

Despite this, the Jedi were found themselves still able to locate adequate fighters with relative ease. To their surprise, the sleek craft differed notably from the Jedi fighters they had become accustomed to, utilising an expended fuselage and a pair of extended 'wings' at the rear of the main body. Slowly lowering himself into the cockpit of the nearest fighter, Anakin began to familiarise himself with the alien control set which, despite the initial starkly different appearance of the craft, was similar to a Jedi fighter. Conducting one last check from habit before he began to prepare the craft to take off, he noticed that whilst Obi-Wan had followed a similar routine to him and was now manoeuvring his ship to depart, Leia had remained frozen on the hangar floor where they had left her, the small blue light of a transmission visible over her hand. Quietly, he leapt down from his ship, landing next to her and catching her off guard.

"What happened?" he asked, not unkindly. He could already tell however: her tightened lips, the slight mistrust in her eyes and her rigid composure openly displayed her feelings, even before her words.  
"You know what happened, speak now."  
"Our team got separated as we arrived here, two of us were to flank the tunnels and two were to continue deeper in. We were lucky enough to run into you first. I gather they met your comrades?"  
"Correct."  
To Anakin's relief, Obi-Wan, who had finished adjusting the controls in his ship and, unbeknownst to the pair, had silently stolen up behind them, interjected. "Then you should know you have nothing to fear, they are wiser and more powerful Jedi than even we are. The questions you seek on our mission, or how we survived the purge, they will surely be more eloquently and more clearly answered by them than by us. However, having both recently exited a war of our own, we should be capable of assisting Luke with his rescue mission, by your grace, of course."

The quick and surprisingly honest answer from the Jedi master appeared to work perfectly, as the brimming tension abated as rapidly as it had formed, and Leia's face morphed back into a mask of hidden relief. As they turned once again to board their ships, this time without the princess, she called out, "head for Jabba's palace… and maybe see if you can teach him a thing or two while you're at it!"

"She wants us to train him?" Obi-Wan wondered to him as they began to climb the ladders to their separate cockpits. Sharing this feeling of puzzlement, Anakin turned to clarify what Leia had meant, only to find an empty hallway where she had stood moments earlier. Shrugging indifferently to his friend, he clambered into the cockpit, initiating the launch sequence and slowly easing the ship out of the hangar. As he navigated between the overgrown plateau which had obviously fallen into a state of neglect following the original abandonment of the base, he reflected on the beauty of the forest world, and how it would differ from the cruel and unforgiving deserts of Tatooine. To calm his mind as he entered the atmosphere, he began quietly arguing with himself with himself to let go of the pain his home planet reminded him so strongly of. Muttering to himself, he glanced over the coordinates once again and took one last look at the vegetation sprawling below him, then turned back to the stars and braced himself for a jump to hyperspace.

* * *

The drop out of hyperspace abruptly jerked Anakin out of the reverie he had fallen into over the journey to Tatooine. The desert planet had changed little since he had last visited, he mused as he brought his fighter down to land a few leagues from the crime lord's home. The 'palace' consisted of three cylindrical structures bearing a closer resemblance to a fortress than the soaring spires he had come to associate with traditional royalty from his time on Naboo. As he gazed at the rusted iron walls, he came to realise that no Jedi would be able to have scaled or even camped near them without raising suspicions. Jabba had outfitted his home with automatic detection systems set to register the vocal patterns, appearance and mannerisms of a new arrival, providing a preliminary identification check before they even encountered a guard, who were all armed and swarmed the area like sand people did the deserts. The thought made him recoil involuntarily as the memories of his last visit briefly resurfaced. Regaining his composure swiftly, he glanced once again at thee sheer walls and turned to Obi-Wan. "I doubt he will have tried to infiltrate the place, no doubt he'll have some men on the inside but as a Jedi, even if he's changed his appearance, it's not easy to blend in…" he tailed off.  
"I managed it", replied Obi-Wan.  
"True", Anakin grimaced slightly at the memory, "but with all due respect to him, you were a Jedi Master at the time, this boy sounds like little more than a padawan who barely survived an encounter with his first real enemy".  
After a brief pause contemplate Anakin's point, Obi-Wan spoke, "I agree. If I were him, I would not have directly tried to infiltrate the palace until I knew the exact layout, where my target was being kept and had managed to formulate a substantial plan of infiltration. Which means I would have run reconnaissance missions into the palace, or…"  
"…co-ordinated them." Anakin finished for him, "which means that whoever we're looking for is close by".

He was not wrong in his assumption, and as the Suns began to set over the horizon, they descended a steep path, hugging the cliff to avoid slipping any deeper to the dune sea far below. It was whilst hugging this wall that they discovered a small black circle drawn onto the upper lip of a small crevice in the in the cliff face. Squeezing through the opening, they discovered the charred remains of a small fire, now just a small pile of charcoal concealed from the wind. "Better check for some form of heat", Anakin muttered, and tentatively extended his hand towards the mound. It was as cold as he would have expected of a desert planet, with no trace of having been lit recently. "Nothing", he nonchalantly informed the other Jedi, but broke off as his fingers brushed something hard and metallic. Reaching his hand the rest of this way into the ashes, he retrieved a small leather pouch containing credits of an unfamiliar mint to him, one of which his fingers had brushed to betray their location. "Wait a second!" he called excitedly, "got something, I'm guessing it's some kind of message?"  
Obi-Wan had returned by this time, and he too inspected the bag, "I'd assume so… although the marking on them is unfamiliar to me. If we are to wait here for whoever left it to return, I would advise caution; you can never be sure this wasn't simply left as part of an underworld dealing or bounty hunter payment."

Anakin briefly voiced his agreement, and the two adopted similar positions for that which they had used to ambush the princess earlier, with Obi-Wan crouching towards the back of the cave, initially hidden from sight to anyone entering, and Anakin on a concealed to one side of the crevice serving as an entrance, ready to creep behind whichever unsuspecting person would enter next.

They remained in those positions for a long time, meditating or idlily exchanging theories about what may have happened to the other two Jedi and where Leia had gone to alleviate boredom. However, during one of his bouts of meditation, Anakin sensed a presence outside and heard the small crunch distinctive of a boot on the shingle of the slope they had climbed down earlier. His eyes snapped open and he reached for his lightsabre, feeling his muscles tense in anticipation of a fight. A brief confirmatory glance at Obi-Wan confirmed that his friend mirrored his position, and held his weapon concealed in his sleeve. To his surprise though, the stranger outside did not enter, but instead called out. "I can sense you in there", a voice called, and Anakin couldn't help but marvel at the similarities of the stranger's voice to his own, "come out, I mean you no harm".  
"Ironic, could have sworn that was our line", Anakin mumbled to Obi-Wan and he struggled to extricate himself through the small entrance, painfully aware of his vulnerability. As he emerged, however, he noticed that the stranger looked almost familiar. The man was dressed all in black, and though he couldn't have been older than 25, he had a way of holding himself indicative of someone hardened by battle, not a mere smuggler. He appeared relaxed, but Anakin could see his hand rested on his belt, obscuring the exact weapon he used. He had little doubt it was a lightsabre though, the man was clearly force-sensitive and, most importantly, had a mop of dark blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, sharp facial features and a powerful build: he might as well have been staring into a mirror.

He could tell Obi-Wan had noticed the resemblance as well from the way the Jedi started slightly when he saw the man. However, he was quick to conceal his reaction and launch a diplomatic introduction, "Luke, I presume?"  
"You know my name?"  
"Only your first one I'm afraid, someone in your rebel movement sent us to find you. A woman called Leia." Noticing how Luke gave a small smile at the mention of the name, he continued, "I see the name has some meaning to you, she is friend of yours?"  
"A close one", he admitted, "and hence she knew the importance of this mission, and why it was best for me to work alone", he finished at what was almost a low growl.  
"Ah, that too I can explain", Obi-Wan continued placatingly, "my friend and I were both Jedi, as I surmise you are, before the event you call the 'Purge' but were frozen in carbonite ourselves for a number of years during the rise of this 'Empire', we were sent here so that we could help train you."  
"Prove it", Luke was still sceptical, at which point Anakin decided to enter in to the conversation, revealing his lightsabre from within his sleeve and activating it, watching with satisfaction as the man's face briefly registered a fleeting expression of awe as the blade sprung to life. This awe was masked quickly though, and slowly replaced by wonder as the man moved closer to the weapon in front of him.

"Where did you get this?" he enquired, and Anakin slowly realised that the expression on the man's face was not wonder, but recognition. "Where?", he repeated the question once more, with anger beginning to colour his voice now as Anakin slowly realised his mistake. "This lightsabre belongs to me", he spat each word, and the hope which had momentarily filled his eyes upon the prospect of seeing real Jedi was quickly replaced by a loathing he must have withheld for robbers and people defiling what he viewed as his. It was understandable, 'this weapon is your life' Anakin had once been told, and he empathised the anger the man would be feeling with someone having taken it. At the same time, however, he had built this weapon upon completing his trials to becoming a Jedi Knight, and it had never known any master but him, so the fact the stranger was accusing him of stealing his own weapon appeared absurd to him.

The brief standoff was abruptly ended by Obi-Wan, "Luke", he said, except his voice sounded ethereal, and far frailer than Anakin was used to. He spun round to address his friend, and saw the Jedi staring in a mix of horror and amazement at something which must have been behind him. Luke had fallen silent though, and greeted the voice familiarly, "Ben", he began, "how did this man come by my lightsabre?" Whirling around again, this time to address the source of the voice, he saw a translucent blue figure standing a small way down the path. Even with its white hair replacing auburn, and a sadness in the eyes he would not have believed possible in his friend, he recognised the figure immediately. "Obi-Wan…" he breathed.

However, the ghost was still talking to Luke, "he built it, of course", he said whilst a reminiscent chuckle, "I still remember his frustration over its need to be perfect", he sighed. I never thought I'd see him again as he was. Despite quelling Luke's accusation against Anakin, the ghost's enigmatic answers only succeeded in prompting a barrage of questions, none of which 'Ben' registered having heard. "This man here was once my padawan, and he built the lightsabre which I later gave to you, although I see he has not yet lost it. The Force works in mysterious ways…" the ghost mused. Now, though, he turned to Obi-Wan, "there will come a day when Anakin is faced with a choice," he said softly, "your speculations about Padmé were correct, you must be there for him before you are sent to hunt Grievous, or you will be unable to help," he said softly.  
"Then I am too late", Obi-Wan replied, without emotion.  
"You are never too late, you have this chance, do you not?" the ghost continued, unphased, "the Force works in mysterious ways…"

Turning back to Luke, he smiled warmly, and announced, "Luke Skywalker, this is what your father was in his prime. He is one of the greatest in ever knew and must have been sent to you for a reason. Trust in the Force, it works in mysterious…" the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi faded once again, leaving the three men staring at each other, overwhelmed and at a loss for words. Silence reigned for a long time. In the end, it was Luke who broke it with a single question: "Father?".

 **Hey guys, sorry about the delay in posting a new chapter, but it's a pretty busy period at the moment, so I've not got as much to write as I'd normally like. Thanks so much so sticking with me, the support for this is honestly the only reason it's still going. Having said that, though, I've finally got a plan, all the way down to how it's going to end, so bear with me, I'll get there eventually! In the meantime, just read and enjoy. If you liked it, or if you want more from Mace Windu and Yoda, let me know. :) – AW117**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: don't own any characters or places described below**

After everything he had been through, Anakin would have expected himself to be adept at adapting to new situations and dealing with the unexpected. In truth he was, but in that moment, he stood transfixed, staring open-mouthed at the ghost as he struggled to comprehend the information he had just received. After a long time, he gradually began to collect his thoughts and, with some trepidation, asked the question which can been plaguing him since the Jedi had first arrived, "and your mother? Did you ever, did she…" he trailed off.  
"I never knew her", Luke replied pensively, "I was raised by my uncle and aunt on Tatooine, and after they were murdered, Obi-Wan took me on briefly, I've been on my own since then."  
Any remaining glimmers of hope Anakin felt following this statement were quickly silenced by the ghost, who simply shook his head sadly, "shortly after the end of the Clone Wars. She was a fighter, to the very end." His questions were seemingly directed to a bare patch of rock at the far end of the cave, but Anakin still felt them all too keenly. He kept his own focus fixed on a similar point – a rock lying discarded on the ground – he displayed no sign of emotion and Luke stared transfixed at the stoic acceptance with which his father accepted the news. Only Obi-Wan, from the benefit of experience born from many years spent close to his former padawan knew not to watch the person, but instead followed his gaze to the pebble, which was vibrating furiously a small way off the ground. As he watched, small, jagged cracks appeared across the stone, becoming larger and longer until the rock gave way and the remaining debris tumbled to the ground.

This was not the first time the Jedi Master had seen his friend's way of masking his emotions, and he offered a sad smile to the ghost sitting across from him, who returned his gave for a moment, then quickly looked away, unable to meet his eyes. The reaction puzzled the Jedi master, but he restrained himself from questioning the ghost's actions as Anakin began to berate himself softly, "then I failed". He said it flatly and without emotion, but Obi-Wan could feel the sea of resentment and self-loathing within him. "How did she die? At least tell me that…"  
"She lived just long enough to give birth", replied the ghost, "but she had endured too much heartbreak to see the point in continuing – there was nothing I could do, I was barely holding myself together as it was."

Silence reigned in the cave as each Jedi attempted to process what they had just heard. Anakin paced the small floorspace with a grim resolve in his eyes, but what he resolved to do, Obi-Wan could not tell. The Jedi Master, meanwhile, sat slumped in the corner, deep in thought. The death of his fellow Jedi would sadden him, of course, as would the damage obviously inflicted upon the order, but what would ruin him so much as to be in a state such as the ghost had described. He had been captured, tortured, forced to watch the people he cared about, the people he loved, murdered before his very eyes. Throughout all he had witnessed and had been inflicted upon him, nothing had broken him the way the ghost before him seemed to be broken. There was a deep, almost crushing, sadness in the eyes which was unrecognisable to him. Luke simply watched the two Jedi, one becoming gradually more irate, and the other sliding deeper and deeper into thought. Surprisingly, it was Kenobi who cracked first, "no-one… there's no-one left. I thought, that maybe one or two would…" he trailed off, directing an expression of understanding towards the ghost, who still refused to meet his eye.

Luke had noticed the Jedi Master attempting this ever since the apparition had appeared but was entirely unprepared for the effect it would have. Years of self-discipline, training and repressed emotions suddenly came to a head, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, for possibly the first time since his master's death, lost control. "We can back for a reason!", he roared, "I can see it in your eyes, you know exactly what happened, what we _need_ to know to stop all of this from happening, and you won't say. I admire your nobility, your restraint, but maybe that's where I went wrong in the first place…" he had become quieter during his rant, and tailed off at barely more than a whisper, but the effect was enough to stun the gathering in the cave.

Anakin broke the silence, "Master, I know you're emotional, but the Code…"  
"I taught you well it seems", Obi-Wan smiled at his former apprentice, "but no Anakin. The Code was the mantra of the Jedi; they're dead, all of them. What are we to do, cling to the principles of a fallen order? No, this might be history for you", he challenged the ghost, who had remained passively in the corner observing the outburst, "but there is still hope for us, we just need your guidance." The ghost offered a sad smile to this, "I had forgotten the optimism we used to have, I almost miss the Clone Wars, but I am a different person now." Seeing that Anakin now too opened his mouth to argue the case, the ghost cut him off with a small chuckle, "however, the Force does seem to have brought you here for a reason, so I cannot argue with your logic. I will tell you what I can of the end of the war, or at least what you are ready to hear now." With this, he turned to Luke, "when the time is right, tell them what happened on Bespin." The young Jedi nodded at this, and the ghost directed his attention to Kenobi, "Obi-Wan…" he said slowly, "yes, it still suits you. A man loyal to his order and to his principles: upheld the Jedi Code on conduct, combat, even love, and yet you never could bring yourself to tell anyone your friend's secret until it was too late, not even Anakin himself. If you want to rectify the future, you fix your old mistakes first."

Obi-Wan looked at the ghost with a grave understanding and sombrely turned to the pair of Skywalkers, who were standing only a few metres looking entirely nonplussed. After a few moments, Anakin opened his mouth to respond to Kenobi's look, but was cut off by Luke, "I hope that helped you Ben, Obi-Wan", he corrected himself, "because I was standing right next to you and couldn't understand a word", this elected a small laugh from Anakin, who had himself been likely been going to say something identical, Obi-Wan had no doubt. However, the laughter died in his throat as the Jedi Master began to speak, "I am truly sorry about your wife Anakin. I know you hold yourself responsible for her death: you shouldn't. If you insist on it, at the very least, let me share the blame. I've known, my friend, I've known for a very long time and I said nothing. Seeing you expelled from the Order, it would have broken me, so I said nothing. If Padmé died because of my incompetence, then I'm sorry, you may have remained a Jedi, but I will still have failed as your friend."

* * *

"Destroyed?", Mace Windu was incredulous, "was in invaded, annexed, victim to a planetary bombardment…"  
He was cut off almost immediately by the woman, "I fear you fail to grasp the magnitude of this Master Jedi, this attack was not directed against population or infrastructure, but the planet itself. It no longer exists, reduced to a collection of debris confined to a point in space Alderaan once occupied".  
"Impossible", the Jedi countered, "nothing has that kind of power".  
"Wrong, you are", Yoda spoke up now, "with your feelings, you much search – feel a planet, do you? Gone, it is… only a tear in the force will you find there now".  
"Your friend is right", the woman continued. As she spoke, detailing the power of the planet-sized space station which had committed the atrocity, Mace used the opportunity to conduct a brief assessment of his surroundings. The room they were in was well lit, and if it came to a fight, there was little in the way of cover to conceal him. As he surveyed the network of openings leading into the chamber, he began to feel distinctly uneasy about the possibility of large numbers of troops being quickly mobilised against the two Jedi. Already he could sense the presence of men skulking along connecting passageways, but despite his misgivings about the state of the room, he felt no fear, knowing that if it came to a fight, he and Yoda were far from outmatched.

As he finished surveying the room they were in, he felt his gaze come to rest on the red-haired woman again. Now he had a moment to focus, he felt something stir at the back of his mind; she looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place her. Gradually, he began to concentrate again on the conversation – the end of the clone war had been signified by a mass purging of the Jedi, no-one knew quite how it had happened, except that Republic forces had been mobilised against the Jedi traitors at the behest of the newly self-appointed Emperor Palpatine. Mere days later, the Separatist leaders had been discovered and murdered, although that was never officially ratified, and the Galactic Empire was left as the only major power in the galaxy. Whilst the woman had conceded that core worlds such as Coruscant had initially prospered due to the demand for industry in manufacturing necessary parts for Star Destroyers and even the space station itself, the mid and outer-rim was left to suffer mercilessly, along with anyone too poor or principled to benefit from the lucrative market of war profiteering.

The birth of the Rebellion, to Windu's initial surprise, was glossed over without any significant detail. As the story progressed, however, he began to understand why: these people had lost everything. Out of the three major founders of this rebellion, only one still survived. This was all he could infer, as the woman would refuse to answer questions beyond what she deemed necessary, and Windu couldn't blame her, despite what must have been a valiant effort, he could see the traces of a deep sadness masked behind her words. "Senator Amidala was the first of us to die", she stated bluntly, "in childbirth we were told, although I knew Padmé, she was strong, I doubt that just this…" she trailed off, and Windu noticed a single tear glistening in the corner of her eye. It was quickly blinked away however, and she continued, "but that was a long time ago, Senator Organa died only a few years ago, you knew him?" She posed this question to Yoda upon noticing the saddened expression which briefly stole across the jedi Grandmaster's face.  
"Knew him not well, did I. But know well do I, a good man he was", came the reply, Windu approved of his friend's tact, the reply had been both kindly and incredibly vague. But left with few options to further pursue her line if questioning, the red-haired woman continued speaking. Windu recognised her now – Senator Mon Mothma had once represented the core world of Chandrila, he briefly wondered how the people of her planet had reacted to what must have been viewed as her defection to the Rebel Alliance. He snapped himself out of this reverie quickly, returning to focus on what was being said, "after the destruction of Alderaan, barely any trace remained of the planet, a few citizens will remain scattered throughout the galaxy, granted, but a planet is nothing if not it's people."

"What about it's legacy?" The question came from a new entrant behind Windu, surprising him. He had sensed the woman approaching, her presence in the Force was repressed but still extremely strong, what surprised him was the casual manner in which she announced her arrival. He allowed himself to relax slightly, the new entrant had entirely squandered any element of surprise they thought they held, implying that the chance of an ambush was minimal. Still, he did not entirely drop his guard, if the Clone Wars had taught him anything, it was the cost of a lapse in vigilance. Turning, he beheld the new arrival, she was dressed modestly, but this did little to detract from her presence. She strode purposefully into the room with a conviction and gravitas he had seldom seen in senators. What gave here away were the eyes, dark brown and highly intelligent, Windu had seen them before and this time his memory did not fail him; the woman standing in front of him was a near perfect image of Senator Amidala. She introduced herself swiftly, "Leia Organa, former princess of Alderaan. As exemplified here, as long as the principles Alderaan stood for persist, its legacy will live on and it's people will come back." She gestured to Mothma at this, "you said these two were Jedi? And yet the Jedi order was destroyed almost entirely, how many survived, two, three? We thought only Luke remained, and yet here you have the proof that we were wrong. As long as the Rebellion existed to fight for what the Jedi once stood for, the Jedi would come. Admittedly, I doubt the people of Alderaan are frozen in carbonite, but if we stay strong, they will return."

Her proclamation was met with a silence, as her words were reflected upon by the Jedi, the senator and, Windu had little doubt, the soldiers gathered in the nearby passages. Senator Amidala's looks had apparently not been the only thing this woman had inherited, Windu thought wryly to himself, she had an impressive talent for politics, all except for… "excuse her, your Highness", he began diplomatically, "that was a rousing point, and I congratulate you on your conviction, but I am afraid you confused me with your carbonite analogy, was the planet frozen before being destroyed?"

This question, in turn, elicited a confused look to flash across the princess' face, before she began to elaborate, "that was not an analogy, Master Jedi, but rather an allusion to your own recent experiences as prisoners in carbonite for what must have been at least 20 years." She stopped speaking abruptly, noticing the confused expressions slowly creeping across the faces of the two Jedi masters. "Frozen in carbonite, we were not", Yoda spoke up, "brought here by the Force, we were; from before this Empire, we come." He, like Windu, had noticed the look of anger and apprehension adopted by the princess at this revelation. He could already guess what must have happened but decided to voice his theory for confirmation anyway. Fighting to keep his voice as non-confrontational as he could, he spoke up, "we're not the first jedi you have met today, are we?"

His question was met by a look of understanding, quickly followed by a realisation and horror, as the princess turned to former senator Mon Mothma and spoke furiously in hushed tones for a few moments. What she had to account for however, was her own desperation and the heightened senses of the Jedi sitting across from her, and as such, Windu listened to the brief exchange between the two women, "ready the troops, there are two more, and whoever they are, they know where Luke is; you know we can't afford to jeopardise him… or this mission". Biting back his questions, Windu readied himself for what would doubtless be a long explanation and allowed himself a wry smile, thinking back to the very origin of the Clone War on Geonosis: this would not be the first time he had saved Kenobi and Skywalker.

 **I know it's been a long time since my last update on this story, but with the current situation, one of the perks is that there's some more time to devote to writing, so updates should flow a bit more consistently for the moment (I know that's not saying much given the months it took me to update last time, but bear with me on this!)**

 **As ever, to everyone who takes the time to review this, or even to make it this far; you really keep me going, thank you! – AW117**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, all rights and characters belong to Disney**

Anakin considered Obi-Wan for a long time. To his credit, he did not try and deny his friend's claims, but rather said nothing at all, staring sombrely at a point slightly past the Jedi's head. When he did speak, it was slow and controlled; Obi-Wan had not been sure of the reaction he would receive after his revelation, but he had expected more of a response. Anakin was infamous as an impulsive, highly emotional Jedi within the Order, and so he had expected… he did not know exactly what he had expected, but it had not been the almost emotionless man standing before him now. He felt a brief flash of pride at his friend's reaction, for one of the first times he could remember, Anakin was cleansing himself of emotion before he decided on his next move – the exemplar Jedi he had sought to train for so long. He almost immediately chastised himself for the thought, he had known Anakin for long enough now to recognised that his friend was obviously not devoid of emotion, but overcome with it, and why shouldn't he be? In a matter of days, he had found out that everything he had ever stood for and everyone he had loved had all been taken from him, he didn't even know if he was still alive in this strange future. Now he realised that his old master and friend had known the secret he had fought for so many years to keep hidden, a secret that could expel him from the Jedi Order should it ever come to light. With a wry smile, he reflected to himself that maybe his friend had earned the right to be emotional, and so resigned himself to wait. Out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan noticed Luke talking quietly to the ghost, no doubt having some necessary context applied to the appearance of the Jedi. He doubted the boy would be told much, assuming the ghost was a future version of himself, but nonetheless he was grateful for having the explanation relieved from him, at least partially.

He was snapped out of his reverie as Anakin finally deigned to speak, "you never told them". It was phrased as an ambiguous statement, but Obi-Wan understood its meaning intuitively. As he began speaking, he made his decision: the half-truths, the blind-eyes, it would stop. All of it. He would be honest, brutally honest, to both Anakin and to himself. Taking a deep breath, he locked eyes with his former padawan and began to talk, "Anakin, you must understand that what you felt, it's natural. Jedi are allowed to love, just not to form attachments…" he trailed off briefly, picking his next words with a guarded care, "when I was younger, much younger, first starting as a padawan myself, I was very close with a girl named Siri Tachi. You knew Qui-Gon, he was a relatively maverick Jedi himself, but this part of the Code he agreed with. He explained to us the dangers and vulnerabilities of forming a romantic attachment, so we broke it off… She died shortly after Geonosis." He glanced at Anakin, he hadn't moved, and was leaning against the wall of the small cave, listening intently to Obi-Wan speak, so he continued, "I heard shortly after, and admittedly, I felt saddened, but the boy who had loved her had faded into the past, and I just felt numb. Satine was different. At any point, if she had but uttered the word, I would have left the Code, the Order, all of it behind without hesitation. I never forgave myself for her murder. To this day I still cannot help but wonder; if I had followed my heart, would there be a possibility, even if only a chance, that she would still be alive? I couldn't be the one to take that chance from you, my friend".

In the pause that followed, he sensed that Anakin would benefit from time to process his emotions. He had always been an unconventional Jedi, and his interpretation of the Code had been a subject of controversy amongst the Jedi Council, but Obi-Wan personally viewed his friend's passions as a strength. Despite his own acceptance of the teaching to actively prevent attachments, alongside bonds to anything else one might fear to lose, Anakin had always been fiercely loyal to those he cared about. Any doubts Obi-Wan had ever had of that had quickly been dismissed on the battlefield. His friend was formidable in combat, wielding a power matched by very few, but Kenobi doubted that even many of those few would be able to stand against the Anakin who emerged when the people he was so fiercely loyal to were threatened. A true warrior would emerge then, the lethal shadow of his blue blade carving through all who opposed him until his friends were safe.

Obi-Wan sighed, this was not the way of the Jedi. The Clone Wars had altered his perspective to rest too heavily on war. His true feelings, he reflected, were not based off the battle prowess Anakin's embrace of emotion had offered him, but the nature of the man they had shaped. His former apprentice was, for lack of a more suitable phrasing: selfless. He had come alone to rescue Kenobi himself of Geonosis without regard for the danger it might offer, and despite many Jedi recognising the injustice with which his own former Padawan learner had been treated, Anakin was the only one who had stayed by her side in the end. In many ways, he had come to encapsulate the idea of what the Jedi were meant to be by breaking one of their most fundamental teachings. As Obi-Wan reflected on this, he slowly came to wonder if this was the very reason he had deigned never to inform the Council of Anakin's relationship with Padmé. He chuckled to himself slightly at that, slowly clarifying the problem; it was nothing as grand as jealousy or admiration for the merits of loyalty that motivated him, quite simply, he had done it for Anakin. The strict and principled Obi-Wan Kenobi had formed more attachments than he cared to remember throughout his life, and whilst some had ended painfully, he concluded solemnly that Anakin's emotions may in fact be his greatest strength, surprising himself with the assessment.

Surprisingly, out of the small group assembled in the cave, Obi-Wan recovered first. Glancing around the cave, he saw Anakin similarly deep in thought and Luke still engaged in conversation with the ghost. Slowly rising to his feet, he announced an intention to assess the local environment and gain an understanding of where they had found themselves. This was of course a lie, and a relatively weak one at that, but after the news that Anakin had just been forced to endure, some time alone to bond with his son seemed like the best thing Obi-Wan could do for his friend. So, he had made his excuse and slipped out into the rapidly cooling desert air. Noting a steepening path leading away from the cave, he began to climb, assuming it would take him towards a flattened peak he could see in the mid-distance. It was the perfect route, he thought to himself with satisfaction; by the time he returned it would be well into the night, and at least by gaining the high ground he would be able to establish a rough understanding of the terrain they were situated in, alongside any settlements overlooked on their brief descent through the atmosphere.

Just as the first of the twin suns touched the horizon, he crested the summit of the crag. Far below, he could see the sands stretch unbroken to form a vast undulating dune sea capped by the fading red glow of the sky. He stared, mesmerised by the beauty of the scene, and slowly allowed his mind to drift. For possibly the first time since he had arrived in this strange time, Obi-Wan Kenobi allowed himself to ponder the events which might have conspired to make the galaxy so unrecognisable. He could not fathom how a Jedi purge had been so readily accepted in a time when they had been revered as heroes by the republic, or how their loyal clone troopers, or 'stormtroopers' as he had heard them called, had turned on their former generals so easily when the Jedi had been assaulted on the station they arrived in. During that mental turmoil, however, one thought broke through, clear and focussed amidst the muted backdrop of his worries: he was not alone.

Hurriedly slamming up his mental shields to mask his presence in the Force from unwanted attention by other Force-sensitive beings, be glanced around the crag. He was a distance from the cave now, and whilst he had little doubt that Anakin could have snuck up on him in his meditative state, he doubted his friend would pass up a chance to meet his own son that readily. Turning, he surveyed the desert in front of him for signs of life but saw nothing. It was as he began to settle back into his mediation that he noticed the blue shimmer on a rock slightly above him. As he watched, the outline of a man slowly began to form, the same man who Luke had been talking to in the cave.  
"It's a curious thing", the ghost said contemplatively, "I too used to come to a spot very similar to this when I needed to ponder many if the same questions which trouble you now."  
To his surprise, Obi-Wan found that the nonchalance he had felt in the cave to the discovery of his own death had not been the result of shock in the moment, but a true feeling of insignificance. As he had sat meditating the events of the future, it had barely featured in his mind, and as such he decided would not press the ghost about it now.  
"What happened here?" his question was brief, relying on the emotion barely concealed in his voice to relay the true gravitas of the question. His subtly was wasted on the ghost however, who fixed him with a grave stare, the intense grief behind the stony façade only betrayed by a slight twitch in his eye as he prepared to speak.

Kenobi was familiar with that gesture. Unlike himself, the ghost was not still reeling with the shock of a new reality, but grieved for something greater, more personal. With a gut-wrenching sickening in his stomach, Obi-Wan realised this much go much deeper than a Separatist retaliatory strike and steeled himself for the explanation. It was not long in coming.

* * *

Now that he looked, Luke could see the similarities between him and his father. For a start, they were the same age, he thought dryly, but they had the same sandy hair colour, same penchant for black robes and even a similar stance now as they regarded each other from across the cave. The difference, Luke thought, was the man in front of him was likely conflicted, capable of causing carnage and grief on an untold scale, and yet… Luke could sense none of that in Anakin Skywalker. There was darkness, admittedly, but it did not feel like the callous, cold shroud it had with Vader, enveloping everything in pain and anger until only a sliver of his true self remained, which Luke had no doubt had prevented his own death and allowed him to escape on Bespin.

At last, beaten by his curiosity, Luke broke the silence in the cave, "what was she like, my mother?".  
The question hung in the air for a long time before Anakin answered, but when he did, it was like a veil had been pulled back on the man Luke had only ever heard stories of, the good man who had once been his father. As Anakin raised his head to look at Luke, he noticed a slight glint of tears in his father's eyes, but decided to maintain a dignified silence as he spoke, "she is – was", he hastily corrected himself, "perfect... you should have seen her Luke, she could put many of us Jedi to shame", he laughed slightly at that but continued quickly, "and he did, she fought in the opening battle of the Clone Wars on Geonosis."  
"Both of you fought?" Luke queried.  
"It's a good story", Anakin began, "Obi-Wan had been captured spying on the Separatists, and with no word from the Council, Padmé and I decided to rescue him. Well more accurately, she decided to, and I had no choice but to accompany her, I was her protector after all." With this, Luke glimpsed a mischievous glint in his father's eye, not too dissimilar from the one he would occasionally catch in Leia's.

"I was only a Padawan learner at the time, so naturally our two person assault on an Separatist fortress was a resounding failure, and we were caught as well, being sentenced to death alongside Obi-Wan." Noticing Luke's raised eyebrow at this, he decided to elaborate, "not a quick death. The Geonosians, similar to the Hutt cartels here, view executions as similar to spectator sports. We were chained to posts in an arena to be gored by different creatures they had enslaved. It was as we were in the process of fending off these creatures and finding a way to free ourselves that the true assault began. That was the first time I saw a clone trooper in action, and I can tell you they far outclassed their replacements."  
"The stormtroopers?" Luke interjected.  
"Yes, I believe that's what they're called", Anakin mused, "don't know what the Empire are thinking, they couldn't hit a bantha if it was trying to eat their damned rifle". Luke chuckled slightly at that, echoing the sentiment with a light-hearted joy he had not felt since learning the truth about his father whilst held at sabre-point in cloud city, he couldn't fathom how the man in front of him had fallen so far.

Such questions could wait for the moment though, as Anakin had noticed Luke's gloved hand, "something happen to there?", he questioned.  
Luke tried to reply nonchalantly, "it's a prosthetic, I lost my real one."  
To his surprise, the loss of a hand seemed to come as less of a surprise to Anakin as the synthetic skin covering the device. Eventually, however, he managed to convince his father that, despite owning the prosthetic, he was not a master of the engineering design process. Anakin's excitement lessened slightly with that revelation, but soon he had regained his enthusiasm as he began to take an interest in the duel itself.  
"That's a Sith Lord alright. They always go for the hands, what do you reckon, they keep them as trophies or something?" he joked, "same thing happened to me with my first, although I got him back for that one eventually…"

He trailed off, apparently reflecting on however he had taken whatever revenge he had on this mysterious Sith, but the pause was only brief, as he once again perked up, noticing the lightsabre on Luke's belt, "you built this?"  
"In the time since I arrived on Tatooine."  
"It's impressive, may I take a look?"  
With surprising ease, Luke surrendered his weapon, it was only now as he handed it over to the gloved hand in front of him that he realised the mistake he might be making. Vader knew he lived, and likely knew he would attempt to retrieve Han. Although he doubted deception would be principle amongst Vader's tactics, he would not doubt the Emperor may go to such lengths the manipulate, or assassinate, him. The thought routed him in place as he stared with growing apprehension at his blade.

If Anakin noticed Luke's response, he gave no sign of it. Instead he examined the weapon with fascination, running his eyes up and down. "You can learn a lot about a Jedi from his lightsabre", he said by way of explanation, "but mainly…"  
An emerald glow filled the cave as the blade sprung to life, Anakin sighed, "green was never my colour". Fighting back a retort about how red may suit him better, Luke restrained himself to simply nodding placidly.

Eventually, Anakin deactivated the lightsabre, handing it back to his son with a small smile, "I see you were a fan of Master Kenobi's design?" he asked teasingly, beginning to make his way towards the supplies hastily stashed behind some rocks at the back of the cave.  
"He trained me when I was first starting out as a Jedi," Luke explained, "he was almost like my father, and he died to buy me time to escape from"  
"That Sith who cut your hand off?" Anakin guessed, "brave way to go out. I know I'm dead in this timeline for you by now, but I'd like to think that I died doing much the same for him or Padmé, or even-" he broke off abruptly. "What was the outcome of the siege of Mandalore?"  
Luke was caught off-guard by the question, but answered it as truthfully as he could anyway, "the Empire won I think, it put up some resistance during the transition from the Republic, but the Mandalorians, the warriors at least, have either been driven into hiding or died out."

To his surprise, this did little to dampen Anakin's enthusiasm, "the purge, was there ever a mention of it come to Mandalore, were any Jedi killed there?"  
"I… I don't think so", Luke ventured, there's no mention of it in any of the archives I've seen."  
"Then there might be a chance", Anakin breathed. Ignoring Luke's confusion, he pulled two sticks from a crevasse in between two rocks, "firewood?" he guessed. Luke just nodded. The Jedi closed his eyes then, and with a barely perceptible motion of his hand, summoned the two sticks into the air, holding them perfectly straight, suspended between the floor and roof of the cave. As Luke watched, the two sticks began to spin fast, becoming slowly thinner and smoother with each rotation. A fine layer of sawdust began to collect on the ground beneath the two staves, and Luck watched in awe as the they clattered to the ground, not as the rough, bent logs he had hauled into the cave, but as beautifully crafted training weapons.

"The detail I added to impress you", Anakin admitted, appearing beside him, "the rest is purely functional. How many years have you been training for Luke?" he inquired.  
"Around 7 years", he admitted, "although most of what I know I learned in the field".  
"Impressive you were able to construct your lightsabre then, with such little training," Anakin allowed, "but if we're going to infiltrate Jabba's palace, I'm assuming that's what your plan is at any rate, I imagine you may appreciate a little more, and lightsabres are quite conspicuous."

 **Hope you all liked this chapter, it's part of a much longer chapter I wrote, but I've split it up into two halves because it was over twice as long as any of the others. Good news on that is, that wait for the next chapter is going to be _record breakingly_ short, so stay tuned for that.**

 **Until then, hope you enjoyed the chapter! – Aw117**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: still not mine :)**

"So, you killed Grievous", the ghost was musing, "and were fired on by your own men… yet Anakin and Windu are unhurt and themselves. Has it occurred to you that you may all have been lifted from different points in time?"  
"Well, Master Windu did say he saw Anakin vanish before he himself did."  
"No, that's not what I'm saying", the ghost replied, "you see, when this order was given, the five Jedi sent to stop Sidious were its first victims, it was only when they fell that the other orders were given."  
"So?" Obi-Wan queried, tired of the constant guessing he had been forced to endure since arriving, tired of the ambiguity of knowing or not knowing who to grieve for, and tired of the secrets. Even now, he sensed the ghost was holding back, not telling him something. The way the boy had stared at them in the cave, it had meant something, he had even noticed the hushed discussion taking place between them during his and Anakin's own louder exchange, and was sick of the secrecy.

Thankfully, the ghost deigned to meet his question with a answer, albeit laced with his usual cryptic vagueness, "so you saw the aftermath of their actions, the deaths of hundreds of Jedi, because the clones didn't just turn on you, my friend. What I am saying is that for them, this has not happened yet…" the ghost lapsed into thought again, leaving Obi-Wan in a maddening silence, devoid of any of the answers he was so desperate to learn. After days of supressing his curiosity, to have the answers he yearned for so near to him, only to be denied, Obi-Wan Kenobi's cool practiced façade cracked.  
"Time for what?" he demanded, "there is no time, there's nothing we can do. We are decades into the future, and even if we weren't, Yoda's came here from Kashyyyk, me from Utapau and you yourself said that Anakin and Master Windu fell against Palpatine. We are powerless to stop this!"

Without realising it, he had allowed his voice to rise throughout the rant, until he was almost shouting the last words at the ghost, who just stared at him calmly. "Calm yourself", it reprimanded him sternly, "too many good Jedi have been lost to their anger without you adding yourself to their ranks".  
"So what happened? I must know", it was a surreal experience attempting to convince himself, with the exception of being both from a far off point in his future, not to mention dead, to part with information that might help prevent the deaths of almost everyone he had ever known. Yet he sensed there was something being withheld from him, a reason for the ghost's reluctance, so he pressed on with his questioning.

Finally, it seemed to decide on something, as it suddenly abandoned the almost disinterested visage and looked at him intently. "You must have been sent here for a reason", it explained, "when I first felt the tremor of a time jump in the Force, I assumed it was likely a permanent jump to turn the tide of the struggle against the Empire. I doubt that will case however", he said, smiling at the look of alarm that had briefly crossed Obi-Wan's face. "You came here from crucial turning points in the war, without even realising that was what they were. If you are to do something to change them, and I imagine that is why you were sent to see the repercussions they had on the galaxy, you will need to know what happened."

Throughout the ghost's tale, Obi-Wan began to feel the helplessness of it all, how the Jedi Order had been deceived for so long and how its own trust in the loyalty of its own troops had allowed it to fall so easily. The ghost couldn't tell him exactly how or why the troops had betrayed them, except that it had occurred simultaneously across the galaxy at the same time as the confrontation and revelation of Palpatine as the hidden Sith Lord. He had been briefed on the Chancellor's secret by Anakin shortly after they had arrived, but he was still surprised at how calmly he accepted the revelation as the ghost told him. This surprise was short lived, however, as he finally dared to ask what had happened in the Jedi's desperate attempt to oust the Chancellor from power. "I never learned the details", the ghost replied, "but out of the 5 people who tried to arrest the Chancellor, only one survived."  
"Who was it? You told me both Anakin and Windu fell in the fight against Sidious."  
"No, Windu was killed. But Anakin, Anakin truly died…"  
"What do you mean?". Worry coloured his voice now. It was the ghost's tone which had done it; he was a Jedi, trained to master his emotions, but still, he was positive that if something had happened to the man he viewed as being like his own brother, he would have been angry. He knew that even all those years later, he would have been furious, but he sensed none of that in the ghost. Instead there was only sadness, the pain of a decades-old wound which had never healed.  
"Anakin Skywalker died that day, and Darth Vader was born".

Obi-Wan wanted to deny it, tried to convince himself there had been a mistake. He had seen Anakin only hours ago, and his friend had seemed fine. He stared into the ghost's eyes, hoping for some sing of a trick, or even a trap laid for him, and saw himself staring back. With a sudden numbness, he remembered the hesitancy with which Anakin had informed him of the Chancellor's true identity, he had known the two were close, but would never have suspected the depth of the deception at hand. A father figure was the one thing Anakin had always craved, he reflected bitterly. He remembered the bond which had formed so quickly and effortlessly between Anakin and his old Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, when he had first met the boy on Tatooine. If Sidious could have been that for him, he could have manipulated him, of course, but Obi-Wan doubted that would be enough to turn him to the dark side as completely as the ghost had implied.

"How did it happen?" he asked, still reeling from the revelation.  
"I don't know what drove him to do it", the ghost answered honestly, "the last time I saw him was before I left for Utapau, but you know that don't you?"  
"I remember" Obi-wan replied cautiously.  
"The next was on Mustafar, where we both fought to kill. He had fallen completely to the dark side by that point." Noticing Obi-Wan's horror at what we said, the ghost clarified solemnly, "the things I saw him do, you don't understand: this was not the same man we knew. The clones may have turned on Sidious' command, but the destruction of the temple, that was Anakin. I couldn't believe it until I saw it through the recordings, but the massacred the younglings, all of them. There was no mercy, not even to his own wife… He's more machine that man now. After I defeated him on Mustafar, I assumed he had died for a long time, the last time I saw him as he was, he was burning alive on the slopes of a lava river."

"He killed Padmé?" Obi-Wan surprised himself with that question. The marriage barely surprised him after what he had learned, but Anakin's treatment of her did. He knew his friend well, well enough to know that he would go to almost any lengths for the ones he loved, becoming extremely emotional, and bordering on sheer desperation until they were safe. He had seen it when Padmé had fallen in pursuit of Dooku, and twice with his friend's own padawan as she had been first kidnapped and later forced to live as a fugitive from the order. He knew how deeply Anakin cared for Padmé, despite his former padawan's efforts to mask his emotions, and knew that he would never have hurt the senator unless the man he knew had truly died.  
"Not directly no", the ghost replied, "he thought she had betrayed him by allowing me to sneak onto her ship to kill him. In reality, after I told her what I had seen, she was desperate to see him, and I used that desperation to board the ship in secrecy. Anakin didn't wait for an explanation, however, and choked her through the Force for her betrayal. I was left with no choice but to engage him then, and after realising what I must have done, she had nothing left to live for." Obi-Wan was sure the ghost would be crying if it were possible, he could feel the beginning of tears forming in his own eyes but fought them back.

"Anakin couldn't do that", he stated resolutely. You saw him moments ago, whatever made him turn in your time, maybe that's passed. You saw how the Council played him against Palpatine, maybe Windu accused him of being in league and he had was trapped into it!"  
"Your denial is admirable, unlike your speculations", the ghost said accusingly but then, softening his tone, he continued, "but your faith in him is a quality you share with Luke."  
"His son?"  
"Yes. The man he has become is an unfeeling monster controlled only by anger, pain, and his master Sidious, and yet Luke still testifies to the good in him. I fear I may have lost this blind hope in the long years after the fall of the Republic but seeing your arrival here. There may be a chance. Talk to Luke, find out what really happened before Darth Vader fell to the dark side, but I warn you, it could only lead to more suffering."  
Obi-Wan considered his response for a long time. "Master", he said respectfully, "if what you have told me is true, then I don't see I have any excuse but to try." The ghostly form of his future self just solemnly nodded its head at that, and with a small sigh, began to fade into the darkening night.

He remained there long after the twin suns had dipped below the horizon, and the thousands of stars of the galaxy had begun to throng the night sky. There were more here than on Coruscant, he plaintively, remembering how his thoughts had been similar when he had first arrived on Tatooine, many years ago with Qui-Gon. He wondered if the grim future the ghost had described may have been different if his old master had survived to take Anakin on as his own padawan, as he had originally intended. Although he had moved on from his guilt surrounding Qui-Gon's death many years before, he couldn't help asking himself why the Force had only intervened now, after so many good people had already needlessly died in a war created and controlled by one person. With these thoughts weighing heavily on his mind, he began to walk slowly back towards the temporary camp.

* * *

It was dark when he arrived. Normally have guessed Luke may have employed some sort of defensive measures around the cave, or at least covered the entrance with some of the stray rocks littering the path to help avoid unwanted Imperial attention. To his surprise, however, as he neared the camp, he was greeted not by the expected scramble down the dark slope, and slow journey along the wall to find the small landmarks he had picked out before leaving, but by roars of laughter. Confused, he began to accelerate his pace, his concern mounting as he saw the fire which had been constructed outside the cave entrance, and the two men he had left earlier moving about it like lunatics.

They were fighting, he noticed. Each was holding a wooden stave, a neat trick for an impromptu training session he had taught Anakin during the early years as his padawan and were fighting a mock duel. As he grew closer, about to issue a stern warning about the danger the fire posed to being spotted by imperial patrols, he overheard the end of one of Anakin's pointers.  
"An effective block", his friend was saying, "but predictable. If you hold it that far above your head and freeze to catch my attack, I can just do this." Anakin punctuated his last sentence by swinging his stick at the back his unsuspecting son's knees, which buckled instantly, sending the boy to land heavily on the floor as Anakin moved to stand over him with a twisted expression on his face and malevolent glare in his eye. To Obi-Wan's relief, the expression lasted less than a second before his face cracked into a grin and he howled with laughter, "you've… you've gotta do the face." He wheezed, "that's the face they all make, every last one of them. If you're gonna beat a Sith, you've gotta learn to not flinch, now come on, up you get, let's give this another shot."

It had only been a split second, but for a moment, Obi-Wan had tried to imagine that face sewing death amongst his friends, committing the genocide he had been warned of, and it was easy. As he stared at the twisted, hateful expression on Anakin's face, he was scared, and he was ready to act. Now the moment had passed, and all he could feel was shame. He watched as Anakin playfully taunted his son through the sparring session and had to suppress his own chuckle at Luke's impression of Anakin's Sith face, which was so horrendously over-exaggerated that Anakin again howled with laughter.

As he watched the two men fight, the realisation hit him: Luke knew. Luke knew what his father would become, and yet the young Jedi still trusted the man in front of him, maybe he should do the same. He was tired from the draining nature of their current situation, and if the Force had brought Anakin to the future, maybe there was a chance the man in front of him avoid the fate which befell his future counterpart. Smiling, he began to relax as he remembered the similar missions Anakin and himself would undertake during the Clone Wars, where the friendly insults and the opportunities for competition were seemingly endless. He was not going to let that stop now, he decided.

"The trick is to keep moving", Anakin was saying, "if you freeze with your lightsabre, you give the enemy an opening, like this", he began to swing the staff around in a flowing complicated manoeuvre, no doubt intended to impress his son, Obi-Wan assumed. However, he decided, a demonstration of the technique's weaknesses was probably in order before the boy inflated Anakin's ego any more than it already was. Selecting a small rock, he used the Force to gently levitate it off the path where it had lain discarded and launch it at the back of his friend's head, where it landed with a satisfying clink. Or at least he assumed it must have been satisfying, for at the same moment he had launched the projectile, Obi-Wan had flipped off his narrow ledge and into the firelight, summoning Anakin's staff into his hand as he passed overhead and landing comfortably in his well-practised defensive stance opposite Luke. Noticing the wide-eyed expression on the young Jedi's face, he gave a small mock bow, "and by doing so", he continued Anakin's sentence casually, as if nothing remotely out of the ordinary had happened, "you are forced to focus on your manoeuvre, and can't pay sufficient attention to your surroundings."  
"How long were you waiting there for that?" Anakin asked him jokingly.  
"Oh, I'd just arrived", he brushed off the accusation, "you make it exceedingly easy sometimes."  
"I knew you were there", Anakin said dismissively, "I was just let you do it as a demonstration for Luke". The two Jedi locked eyes at that for a few moments and burst out laughing.  
"Seriously though", Obi-Wan turned to Luke, "what Anakin is suggesting is incorporating Form 4 elements into your technique, which, as you can see, can leave you slightly exposed to projectiles if you are caught unprepared, I would suggest, adopting a more defensive position, like this…"

Almost two weeks later, Anakin glanced up at the night sky. It was clear and crammed with stars each desperately trying to outshine their neighbours in an endless display. He was pleased with the progress with son was making, he reflected, already Luke had begun to lose the rigid form he had begun their first fight with, and the exaggerated power swings were subtler and harder to predict. However, he mused, he doubted the boy would last long in a fight against a true Sith yet. As had become their custom, the trio had lit a small fire outside the cave and were stretched out around its warmth as they recounted their best stories from their time as Jedi. It was strange, he thought, he doubted he had ever seen Obi-Wan so relaxed as his old Master vigorously retold their daring rescue of the Chancellor, with more embellishments than Anakin would have deemed possible. He had grown used to this ritual, however, and had come to love such evenings. In many ways, he felt closer to his Master than he ever had before. The strange circumstances that had led them to where there were had seemed to have a significant impact on the Jedi. His strict adherence to the code had relaxed slightly, and after what they had discussed about Padmé when they had first arrived on the planet, their relationship had become more open, with Obi-wan even delving into some of the details of his mission to Mandalore, during which he had first met Satine. However, occasionally he would still catch a concerned glance from his Master or even his son, and once as he returned from a foraging trip to a local settlement, he had found them in the midst of a heated discussion, which they had dismissed as a friendly argument about their respective lightsabre designs. The furtive glances he had noticed afterwards told him an entirely different story, but he knew better than to press them, and so his patience held.

At the moment, especially, there were more pressing matters on his mind, as Obi-Wan described how he had boarded the ship holding the Chancellor, "obviously we didn't know he was a Sith at that point", he was clarifying, "but after fighting our way through what must have been half the battle droids on board the ship, we finally confronted Dooku."  
"Who force choked him and knocked him out with ease", Anakin finished helpfully, jerking his head in Obi-Wan's direction to show who his playful insult had been directed towards, "while I single-handedly challenged and killed him."  
"Anakin…"  
"What?" he demanded, "I did."  
"Humility is a Jedi's greatest virtue," reprimanded Obi-Wan.  
"Really" he was incredulous now, "you're pulling that one, after you 'fought your way though half the battle droids on the ship'?" his exaggerated impersonation of Obi-Wan's voice gleaned a small chuckle from Luke, and he even saw the ghost of a smile appear on his old Master's face.

As he opened his mouth to continue the story, he sensed a presence, faint and overhead somewhere, but still very clear. It was unmistakeable, another Force user or at the very least a force sensitive being was nearby, they must have been found. Bolting upright, he shot an alarmed glance at the other two Jedi. To his surprise, Luke still lay sprawled by the fire, calmly watching the stars above him. "I recognise that feeling", he said by way of explanation, "don't worry, it's Leia."  
"So she did make it", Anakin replied, beginning to relax, "I didn't know she was Force sensitive. But if she's here, what happened to the other two?"

He was referring of course to Masters Windu and Yoda, who Luke had likely heard of from any communications he had received from Leia, but he did not question Anakin on them, with his interest instead being piqued around Leia. "Force sensitive?" he exclaimed, "Leia's not Force sensitive, she's just-"  
"Here they are." He was cut off by Obi-Wan, who, relieved, had decided to announce the arrival of the two other Jedi as they too emerged from hyperspace. "What took them so long, do you reckon?" he inquired.  
"Probably Leia," Luke replied, clearly irritated at the lack of answers to his earlier question, "before coming here, she needed to speak with Lando to gauge the right time for her and Chewie to attempt their infiltration of the palace… I'll explain later", he said dismissively in response to their confused looks.

"Good idea", Anakin confirmed, lowering his mental defences to search for the signal with greater clarity "I'd say the most important thing we can do right now is regroup and discuss a plan to-" he stopped abruptly. He had felt something. It was faint, very faint in comparison to the other Force signatures he could feel, but it was there. After years of training to recognise it, he was confident he could feel his former Padawan, not here, not even with the rebels on their far-off forest base, but somewhere else, somewhere far. A quick glance at Obi-Wan told him that the jedi had felt the same thing. His slightly stunned face was gazing towards the sky with a slightly glazed expression on his face. Renewing his efforts, he began actively searching for it again, it wasn't hard to find, "she's searching for us", he realised with pleasure, beginning to extend his own presence to meet the one he felt. To his horror, he felt it shrink from his touch, vanishing into the empty vacuum of Space. "She's, she's gone…" he murmured in disbelief, glancing at Obi-Wan in shock. To his surprise, the Jedi Master appeared untroubled by this, but simply laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, "I imagine we've got until daybreak until the others reach us", he informed them, "assuming they land their ships at a local port. It should give me enough time to meditate deeply enough to locate the source of what we felt", he glanced at Anakin, "she probably just wasn't expecting you".  
"But she expected you?"  
"My ghost blazes a pretty strong trail through the Force", he said light-heartedly.

* * *

With that, Obi-Wan assumed a meditative position, crossed legged on the floor just inside the cave with his back brushing the wall. As he closed his eyes, Luke remarked how the small rocks of the cave floor had begun to float gently off the ground. "It's a sign of a deep meditation", Anakin explained, "although knowing Obi-Wan, there's a reasonable chance he's doing it just to show off. Not all jedi hold so closely to the absolute humility they preach", his father joked in response to Luke's puzzled expression.  
"Who were you talking about?" he inquired after a short pause, "when you refer to this presence you felt?"  
"Ah, you wouldn't have met her, would you?" Anakin realised. "Her name was Ahsoka Tano, she was my former padawan. When I last heard from her, she had just taken Mandalore, and was in the process of preparing to transport its former Sith leader back to Coruscant to be tried. After arriving here and learning about this purge, I assumed she must have been killed along with the rest of the other Jedi, but after what you told me of there being no record of Jedi involvement in the Siege of Mandalore, I began to wonder. You would have liked her, Luke. She was an excellent warrior, resourceful, cunning… and a good friend" he trailed off, lost in thought.  
"I would have liked to meet her", Luke said solemnly.  
"No, you don't understand", Anakin horridly corrected him, "we felt her, she's still here, still alive. Except she shrank away from me", he explained dejectedly, "Obi-Wan thinks it's because she was trying to reach the ghost we saw earlier, but I know there's more to it than that."

Luke was tempted to tell his father then. To tell him everything he knew, to beg him not to turn, but he held back. After everything he had been through, he doubted Anakin could take another blow like that, especially on the verge of possibly rediscovering this padawan of his. Hence, he kept quiet as he was filled in on the intricacies of the Clone Wars, and the personal importance this 'Ahsoka' must have had to his father. "I can't believe we didn't tell you about her sooner", Anakin reprimanded himself as he finished his summary to Luke, "oh she's going to be furious when she finds out."  
"Well he's not going to lack for information for long," Obi-Wan said, appearing behind them, "she's on Malachor, almost the other side of the galaxy. Fortunately we'll be able to get there without crossing into mid or inner rim territory and alerting the Empire, but it won't be a short journey."

Luke noted how quickly the two jedi had adapted to the new galactic situation, but didn't comment on it. Instead he reasoned with himself. If Leia was here now, that would mean it was her turn to take on his intelligence and reconnaissance duties of the Hutt palace, leaving him free to train and hone his skills. Or it would leave him free to meet his father's mysterious padawan, and gain a further insight into what his Anakin Skywalker had been like before his fall to the dark side. The decision was not a hard one, Leia apparently had her own jedi companions after all. "Then we go", he said with a sense of finality he was not entirely sure he felt.  
"What about your friend?" Obi-Wan inquired.  
"How do you thin Leia knew where to come?" Luke responded, "she was always going to take over for this part of the plan, besides, I'm sure your friends wouldn't mind assisting her?" he caught a knowing glance from Obi-Wan.  
"You really want to come don't you?"  
"More than you know." He sensed the jedi had caught the true meaning behind his words, for he immediately backed off.  
"Looks like young Skywalker is in then", he remarked.  
"Now just to convince the others…" Anakin remarked ruefully.

Luke caught the concerned undercurrent in his voice, gathering that the new arrivals and his current friends may not always have seen eye-to-eye. As the first of the twin suns crested the horizon in the distance, he glimpsed the silhouettes of a small band slowly making their way towards their location and steeled himself to play the mediator in the inevitable conflict of interests he could see coming.  
"Relax", he turned to find Obi-Wan standing beside him, "we'll go and find her".  
"But if your friends disagree?" Luke raised an eyebrow.  
"We'll go anyway", Obi-Wan reassured him.  
"How can you be so certain?"  
"Anakin's never really been one for strictly following the will of his senior Jedi, you'll learn to like that about him eventually", he joked.

As he looked at the tall, sandy-haired man standing with his back to them and his hands clasped firmly behind him waiting on the small ridge signifying the sheer drop at the edge of the path, Luke reflected on whether he had been foolish to place his trust in him so easily. Anakin Skywalker had a way of putting him at ease, and for one of the first times since Han had been taken, Luke had felt truly happy in his father's presence, even knowing the dark fate that would befall him. He knew it might be some sort of elaborate trap by the Empire, but had relaxed into an almost nonchalant acceptance of that fact in the time he had known the two jedi. No, he vowed to himself, he would go with them to find this 'Ahsoka Tano', whatever it might mean for him.

 **So that was the end of a mammoth two-part chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it, and like where the story's beginning to develop to. As always, anyone who has any advice or any ideas where I could go, don't hesitate to let me know.**

 **Take care everyone! – AW117**


End file.
